What is TCP for industrial robots

TCP refers to Tool Center Point (TCP).

In order to accomplish various tasks, different tools, such as spray guns, grippers, welding torches, etc., need to be mounted on the end of industrial robots. Since tools come in different shapes and sizes, the actual working point of the robot will change relative to the robot end after replacing or adjusting the tools.

Currently, a common method is to establish a tool coordinate system on the robot tool, the origin of which is the Tool Center Point (TCP).

The robot is programmed in this coordinate system, and when the tool is adjusted, the robot can be put back into service by simply re-calibrating the position of the working coordinate system.

Expanded Information

Types of TCP

1. Conventional TCP

No matter what brand of industrial robots, a tool coordinate system is defined beforehand, and invariably, the XY plane of this coordinate system is bound to the plane of the flange of the robot's sixth axis, with the origin of the coordinates coinciding with the center of the flange. center.

Obviously, the TCP is at the center of the flange at this point. Different brands of robots have different names, ABB robots call this tool coordinate system tool0, REIS robots call it _tnull.

2, stationary TCP

The TCP introduced earlier is to follow the robot body together with the movement, but you can also define the TCP as a position outside the body of the robot stationary. It is often used in gluing, where the glue can nozzle is stationary and the robot grabs the workpiece and moves it. It is essentially a workpiece coordinate system.

3, dynamic TCP

TCP introduced earlier is relative to the robot body flange coordinate system, or geodesic coordinate system, but with more complex applications, TCP can be extended to the outside of the robot body axes, applied in the TCP needs to be relative to the flange to do dynamic changes in the occasion. This can be called a Dynamic Tool, and its TCP can be called a Dynamic TCP.

References:

The only official website of Computer Engineering and Applications - based on the distance-measurable Flatbed Tools for Machine