Analysis of the accuracy of industrial robots and laser scanners for remote laser beam welding and cutting

Remote laser beam welding and cutting have a promising future within the manufacturing technology domain. The advantages of both technologies, that are required in industry, are e. g. a high working speed and a high quality of the welding seams and cutting edges at various contours. To achieve these advantages, challenges for a guidance of the laser beam have to be overcome. The working distance of about 400 mm at remote laser beam cutting and up to 2, 000 mm at remote laser beam welding requires an accurate motion of the involved laser beam handling devices, as tiny displacements of the optics result in severe misalignments of the laser beam on the work piece. In this case an industrial robot is combined with a laser beam deflecting scanner to realise the remote processes. This system setup has to guide the focus of the laser beam, which is less than 100 μm in diameter, multiple times over the same cutting edges for remote laser beam cutting. This paper shows the requirements concerning the accuracy of the devices used for remote laser beam welding and cutting. Based on these requirements, methods are shown how the precision of the devices can be measured for these processes. The results of these measurements show that remote laser beam welding and cutting can be applied with standard industrial robots.