Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 27 (2011) 377388

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Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rcim

Development and application of an intelligent welding robot

system for shipbuilding
Donghun Lee n, Namkug Ku, Tae-Wan Kim, Jongwon Kim, Kyu-Yeul Lee, Youg-Shuk Son
Robust Design Engineering Laboratory (RoDEL), School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Building 301 Room 210, San 56-1, Shillim 9-dong,
Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 151742, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e in fo

abstract

Article history:
Received 2 November 2009
Received in revised form
14 August 2010
Accepted 17 August 2010

Over the last few decades, there have been a large number of attempts to automate welding in the
shipbuilding process. However, there are still many non-automated welding operations in the doublehulled blocks, even though it presents an extremely hazardous environment for the workers. And, the
hazards come about mainly because of the dimensional constraints of the access-hole. Thus, much
effort has been recently directed toward the research on compact design of the fully-autonomous robot
working inside of the double-hulled structures. This paper describes the design, integration,
simulations, and eld testing trials of a new type of welding robotic system, the RRXC, which is
composed of a 6-axis modularized controller, a 3P3R serial manipulator, and an auxiliary transportation
device. The entire cross section of the RRXC is small enough to be placed inside the double-hulled
structures via a conventional access hole of 500  700 mm2, from the outside shipyard oor. The weight
of the manufactured RRXC is 60 kg, with a 6-axis manipulator and modularized controller, and the
weight of an auxiliary transportation device is 8 kg, with a 2.5 m steel wire of 6F. Throughout the eld
tests in the enclosed structures of shipbuilding, the developed RRXC has successfully demonstrated
welding functions without the use of any additional nishing by manual welders, and has shown good
mobility using an auxiliary transportation device in double-hulled structures.
& 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords:
Rail-runner mechanism
Intelligent welding robot
Double-hulled block
Shipbuilding

1. Introduction
Commercial ships carrying liquid cargo, such as liqueed
natural gas (LNG), liqueed petroleum gas (LPG), and crude oil,
can cause serious environmental pollution from the risk of
spillage. In an attempt to minimize such possibilities of spillage,
vessels such as very large crude oil carriers (VLCCs), bulk carriers
(B/C), and liqueed natural gas carriers (LNGCs) incorporate
double-hulled ship walls, as shown in Fig. 1. These consist of outer
and inner walls, spaced 2- to 3-m apart; in this way, if the outer
wall is holed as a result of a collision or stranding, the inner wall
can still prevent the outow of the liquid cargo [1].
However, the manufacture of double-hulled ships is more time
consuming and expensive than that of single-hulled vessels. Fig. 2
also shows the manufacturing process used to obtain the closed
block that is a sub-module of the double-hulled ship wall. A
bottom shell and an open block are assembled separately using
welding processes where the bottom shell is composed of a wide
steel plate with several reinforcing longitudinal stiffeners welded
to it in parallel. Forming the closed block is more complicated;

Corresponding author. Tel.: + 82 2 880 7144; fax: + 82 2 875 4848.

E-mail address: dhlee@rodel.snu.ac.kr (D. Lee).

0736-5845/$ - see front matter & 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/j.rcim.2010.08.006

rst, a top shell, that is the same shape as the bottom shell, must
be manufactured. Then, a number of transverse web oors and
girders are welded on to the top shell; second, the open block is
turned over and placed alongside the bottom shell and each
longitudinal stiffener in the bottom shell is aligned with the
corresponding slit in the open block; and nally, third, the open
block is inserted laterally along the longitudinal stiffeners of the
bottom shell so that each stiffener slides into its corresponding
slit to assemble the closed block, as shown in Fig. 2. The resulting
closed block must then be welded. That is, the welding has to be
done from inside the closed block, along the contacting boundaries of the top shell and the bottom shell.
Since it is an enclosed structure, the temperature gets hot and
is in the range 4050 degrees during the summer, and it is often
too dark to freely carry out tasks, even during the daytime.
However, human workers currently execute this welding process,
working inside the enclosed space surrounded by the top shell,
the bottom shell, a pair of transverse web oors and the girders
[2]. As shown in Fig. 3, this manual welding process inside the
closed block represents one of the most difcult and hazardous
tasks to human workers in the shipbuilding industry. Moreover,
the welding robot, which is currently used in the open blocks,
with a 6-axis articulated manipulator, cannot be used in the
double-hulled block as the overhead gantry crane cannot

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D. Lee et al. / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 27 (2011) 377388

A Commercial Ships carrying Liquid cargo

Transverse web floor

300,000ton class VLCC

Transverse direction
Longitudinal stiffeners
5,100-mm
10,920-mm

Sectional Picture of the hull structure in assembly

3,000-mm

Access hole

Double-hulled block
Longitudinal direction

Longitudinal girders

Fig. 1. Overall view of the double-hulled structure of shipbuilding industry.

Table 1
Commercialized welding carriages.

Turn
Over

(a) (left) 1-axis carriage [3] and (right) 2-axis

welding
carriage [3]

Inner Bottom
Block
(Open block)

Slit

Bottom
Shell

Put to the slit

Double Hull Structure

(Need to be welded)

Fig. 2. Manufacturing of a closed block, which is part of the ship wall of doublehull structure.

Wall-guide
roller

Welding torch

Torch cable
Driving
wheel
Horizontal fillet
welding

Controller
Vertical fillet
welding

(b) Vertical weaving

carriage,
V-ROD [3]

Mechanical
stopper

Handle
torch
holder
Magnets

Limit
sensor

Guide
rail/rack

Double-hulled structure = Closed block

Top plate

great need for an acceptable solution based on a robotic system

that can move around within the closed block, to weld the
contacting boundary of the top and the bottom shells, with mobile
functions or other suitable alternatives. This is the basic research
motivation and objective of the research presented in this paper.

Transverse web floor

Longitudinal stiffener
Bottom plate

Girder

2. Previous works
Top plate

Longitudinal stiffeners

Fig. 3. Manual welding processes inside double-hulled blocks.

approach the inside of the double-hulled block. This is because

the overhead gantry cranes are installed on the ceiling of the
shipyard.
Therefore, it becomes clear from the current status of the
welding process in the double-hulled structures, that there is a

Previously designed welding carriages and welding robots have

typically played major roles in the automation of various processes
in shipbuilding areas. Here, the welding carriage is dened as a
mechanical device having 1- or 2-axis for the specic purpose of
welding. As shown in Table 1(a), a 1-axis horizontal llet welding
carriage can weld the contact boundaries of the stiffeners and the
bottom plate without any motions of the welding torch along
the horizontal trajectories. On the left side of Table 1(a), it can weld
the contact boundaries in the vertical direction, with a certain
rotating motion of the welding torch for the so-called weaving
motions. In particular, both of these use the guidance wheels to
guarantee straightness in driving, by holding it against the stiffeners. And, Table 1(b) also shows a xed type of commercial welding
carriage, V-ROD, for performing the vertical weave-welding in the
specied ranges. Even though these present excellent properties,
such as having compact size, being lightweight, and taking

D. Lee et al. / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 27 (2011) 377388

a modularized controller design approach, they are not acceptable

in more complicated tasks, such as welding of U-shaped trajectories
(see Fig. 4(a)). The reasons for this are claried as follows: (1) the
deciency of the degrees of freedom in the motions of the welding
torch, and (2) the unidirectional welding property, excluding the
V-ROD.
Table 2A shows the intelligent mobile welding carriages. The
carriage of Table 2A-(a) is composed of two prismatic and two
revolute joints, and it also has an embedded controller on it.
However, this carriage also uses driving wheels, which is not
acceptable to the scope of this development, since the bottom
oor represents quite unclean conditions. Thus, if a certain robust
algorithm for motion control does not hold, then the manner of
the differential driving cannot mechanically guarantee the
straightness in repetitive multi-pass welding because of the
high likelihood of slippages. The carriage shown in Table 2A-(b)
is composed of three prismatic and two revolute joints, for
U-shaped trajectory welding. However, this is not also acceptable
to the scope of this development since it uses an external
controller and driving wheels.
In the case of the open block, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, a
commercial multi-axis articulated robotic system can be placed
into the open block using an overhead gantry crane, built into the
shipyard. A typical example of this is the DANDY system, as
shown in Table 2B, which has been developed and successfully
used in the shipyard of Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine
Engineering Co. Ltd., Korea. This system is operated by workers
to weld a part of the boundaries, then moves to the next welding
locations using the overhead gantry crane installed on the ceiling
of the shipyard. However, as mentioned earlier, this system

379

cannot be used within a closed block, as the overhead crane

cannot approach the inside of the closed block. Moreover,
controllers are located at the outside of the open blocks, thus
there exists a number of cables from the outside. This gives rise to
difculties in handling the several cables in the enclosed
structures. There are also more examples of the currently
available systems, which are a combination of a multi-axis robotic
system with an overhead crane, as described in [7,8].
Table 2C(a) shows the NC painting robot, which has been
developed by the Hitachi-Zosen shipyard in Japan [9]. A 6-axis
painting robot, plus a self-driving carriage, is placed inside the
closed block using an expandable placer. However, this robotic
system requires a large access hole of size 800  1600 mm2. Since
the size of the access hole is related to ship-design safety
regulations, any enlargement requires the permission of the ships
owner, and is almost impossible to achieve. Another serious
problem of this robotic painting system is that it cannot move
freely in the transverse direction inside an enclosed block. And, the
Industrial Automation Institute (IAI) in Spain has developed a
robotic system called ROWER 1 that can be used in a closed block
[10]; the robot moves like a spider, and has four legs capable of
extending and contracting. It can move autonomously and can thus
overcome many of the welding obstacles encountered in a closed
block but it has to be disassembled into seven modules before it
can be placed into a closed block, and then re-assembled in situ.
Re-assembly takes approximately 15 min, which is long enough to
seriously affect the productivity of the system [11].
Finally, the RRX, which overcomes all the disadvantages of the
previous robots, has recently been established, and its performances of welding and mobile functions have been veried

Transverse web floor

Weaving motion
welding torch
Collar plate
Scallop welding
Scallop

z
x

Bottom plate
y

{
B}

~ 35-mm

Start & end-point

Via-point
Bracket

~ 30-mm

~ 225-mm
250 ~
1000-mm

Radius: 50,75,100-mm

630 ~ 1050-mm

Handles

: Welding path 150 ~ 250-mm

~ 300-mm

T- Bar: 250 ~ 500-mm

Angle: ~ 500-mm

Fig. 4. (a) Movement of the welding torch along the U-shaped welding trajectories (b) required dimensional ranges of each welding trajectories, and (c) dimensional ranges
of each kind of bracket/stiffeners.

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D. Lee et al. / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 27 (2011) 377388

Table 2
Several types of autonomous welding system.
A. Intelligent welding carriages
(a) 4-axis carriage [4]

B. Articulated welding manipulator

(b) 5-axis carriage [5]

6-axis manipulator, DANDY [6]

Controller cables
from the ceiling

Welding
torch

Torch
cable
Wall-guide roller

Control
panel
Dandy,
DSME
C. Self-traveling welding robots
(a) NC painting robot [9]

(b) Rower 1 of IAI, Spain [10]

Wire spool

(c) RRX developed by SNU [12]

Welding wire spool and feeder

Height : 2130-mm
Manipulator

800 1600-mm Access hole

RRX mobile platform

Welding
manipulator

Leg
Welding torch

Width : 1760-mm

NC painting robot

through eld testing over a period of one year. However, points of

note are that this system is still relatively hard to handle for
placing in, and withdrawing out from the 500  700 mm2 accesshole, even though it satises the dimensional constraints. The
main reason for this is its relatively large size compared to the
size of human workers.
Based on previous analysis of several welding systems, the
mechanism for fully autonomous traveling, on the structures, has
resulted in the robotic system being enlarged due to its number of
joints. This has lead to the request for a compact robotic system,
small enough to be easily handled with auxiliary devices for
transportation instead of the fully autonomous traveling mechanism. In addition, some requests from operators in the eld are as
follows: (a) removal of the mobile function from the robotic
system to decrease its size and weight, (b) design of auxiliary
transportation devices as an alternative to the mobile mechanism,
and (c) a modularized controller to the robotic system for
eliminating cables connecting between robotic systems and
controllers at the outside of the enclosed structures.
During welding, an electric current is used to strike an arc
between the base material and the consumable electrode rod. At
that moment, it is known that the random movement of the
electrons carrying the current, as they are welded, occurs, and
affects the signal cables connecting the robots and controllers.
Moreover, there are a number of robots welding simultaneously
in the same block. Thus, it can be thought that modularized
controllers help to prevent negative inuences on the entire
system, from the various noises. Based on these facts that have

been claried so far, the design of an integrated system of a

portable welding-only robot, having a modularized controller and
auxiliary transportation devices, as a nal alternative of a mobile
robot working inside of the enclosed structures, has been
encouraged.

3. Analysis on the welding task

Fig. 4 represents the task structure and welding tasks, to be
performed with the movement of the welding torch along the
predened welding trajectories. As shown in Fig. 4, the set of
welding trajectories look like U shapes; hence this is called
the U-shaped trajectory welding. The overall process of such
U-shaped trajectory welding is divided into the initial positioning
and the actual welding. Before initiating the welding process, the
start and end points of each welding trajectory can be obtained
using laser, or touch sensors with certain sensing algorithms. (i.e.
the RRXC can use laser and touch sensors together). This is
considered to be the initial positioning, with respect to the inertial
coordinate frame. After nishing this initial positioning, the
welding tasks are performed in the order of left-vertical weaving,
horizontal multi-pass, and right-vertical weaving welding, respectively. The welding has to be carried out along the contacting
boundaries; a vertical path of zigzag motion on the left side is
the contacting boundary between the longitudinal stiffener and
the transverse web oor. That is, it is logically divided into several
segments to support the job of programming and motion planning

D. Lee et al. / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 27 (2011) 377388

of the robots. In addition, there are two reasons for the zigzag
motion in the weaving, which are, (1) it is needed in order to
reduce the number of times of multi-pass horizontal welding, if it
requires a wide range of gap, and (2) it is also needed to prevent
running down of a weldment in the vertical welding.
As shown in Fig. 4, it is supposed that many kinds of U-shaped
welding trajectories may currently exist with respect to the
combination of the positions and dimensions of the bracket, collar
plate, and scallop. The required dimensional ranges of each
segment of the U-shaped trajectories are typically dened as
follows: (1) the height of the longitudinal stiffeners is in the range
250650 mm, (2) the width between two longitudinal stiffeners is
in the range 6301050 mm, (3) the thickness of the collar plate
is up to 35 mm, (4) the radius of the scallop is in the range
50100 mm, and (5) the length of the bracket is up to 500 mm.
Additionally, energy sources of 3-phase electricity supplies of
220 V, and pneumatic power in the range 5 bar to 7 bar can be
used in factories.

381

Connectors for the

motor cables

Handles

585.2-mm

356-mm
625-mm
4th axis
6th axis

A modularized
controller

5th axis
3rd axis

4. Design: an intelligent welding robot RRXC

The carriages, proposed in previous works, use the driving
wheels on the bottom plate and passive wheels for guidance on
the transverse web oor. This can guarantee its straightness in
driving along the predened welding trajectories by holding the
guidance wheels against the web oor but the guidance wheel is
not acceptable for use in the RRXC, whose degrees of freedom in
the end-effector are represented as six-dof comprising three
prismatic and three revolute joints. The main reasons for this are
as follows: (1) it may lead to interference between the
manipulator and the guidance assemblies in the U-shaped
trajectory welding and initial positioning tasks, and (2) it may
not guarantee straightness in bi-directional multi-pass welding,
and only proper unidirectional welding can be ensured because of
the inclined manner of driving against the wall. Naturally, this has
been regarded as the most challenging subject in the mechanical
design of RRXC, since it may lead to negative inuences in the
welding quality if it does not work well.
A point to note, as shown in Figs. 5 and 6, is the design of a
fold-up rack system, which consists of three foldable parts, and
can be xed onto the bottom plate with two on/off magnets, in
order to settle the critical issue of guaranteeing straightness. In
other words, the fold-up rack system can provide a sure method
in bi-directional translations along the horizontal welding
trajectories by solidly xing two racks using the on/off magnets
after folding down onto the bottom plate. The length of the two
racks can be replaced with respect to the width of the U-shaped
Passive guide rollers

Horizontal
welding
Bracket
welding

Driving guide roller

Driving wheels

Welding torch

Fig. 5. The conceptual principle of operation of the guidance wheel in the top view
of the U-shaped trajectory.

2nd axis

Fold-up
and down
1st axis
Distance setting tool

On/off magnet

Fig. 6. View of the developed RRXC, virtual mock-up with representations of

dimensions, names, and number of axis.

trajectories and the operations of the on/off magnets are simple,

as shown in Fig. 6.
The RRXC is composed of a 6-axis welding manipulator and a
6-axis modularized controller. And, the total weight of the system
is 60 kg with the 6-axis manipulator weighing 45 kg and the
modularized 6-axis controller weighing 15 kg.
(1) 6-axis welding manipulator and positioning devices: the
6-axis welding manipulator is composed of three prismatic axes
and three revolute axes, which are driven by AC servo motors. The
rst axis is driven by a rack and pinion mechanism in a parallel
direction to the transverse web oor. In order words, it can make
the entire body of the RRXC move on the rack, which is composed
of three parts, and is connected by hinges with each other.
Moreover, the total length of the racks can be changed by folding
up from 760 to 356 mm. The second axis is also driven by another
rack and pinion mechanism, in a perpendicular direction to the
transverse web oor. In particular, the third axis is driven by
combinations of a pulley, a timing belt, and a telescopic
mechanism, in the vertical direction. It has three overlapping
sliders, namely a multi-slider system, for elevating the welding
torch from its rest state, as shown in Fig. 6. As a result, it has a
stroke of 750 mm in the vertical direction, with respect to the
bottom plate. The fourth and sixth axes are the yawing and rolling
axes which are directly driven by servo motors through harmonic
drive systems. The fth axis is the pitching axis driven by a pulley
and timing belt combination. Fig. 6 also shows the design of the
end-effector, which consists of a laser displacement sensor and
welding torch. This is connected to the main sixth axis of rolling
through a shock sensor.
It should be noted that, the reason the multi-slider system and
the fold-up racks are used is that the system must be compact
enough to t through a 500  700 mm2 access hole. Thus, if the
status of keeping the rest state of the third axis and folding up two

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D. Lee et al. / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 27 (2011) 377388

racks hold, then the dimensional constraint of 500  700 mm2

access hole is clearly satised.
6-axis controller: The controller hardware consists of a main
controller and a welding machine controller. The main controller,
which is mounted on the mobile welding robot, consists of a CPU
board, a motion controller, six AC servo motor drivers of absolute
encoder type, a ash disk, some relays, power modules, and a
power distributor. The welding machine controller, which is
mounted on the welding machine located on the outside of the
double hull structure, controls the welding machine. The communication between the two controllers is made via the RS485.
The motion controller, and servo driver, applied to the RRXC are
commercially available from Yaskawa, and are used because of
their reliability in such hazardous environments. Three servo
drivers are symmetrically arranged on both sides of the controller,
and the rest are arranged in the middle-rear section of the
controller to minimize the interference with the end-effector.
Another challenging issue of the main controller is that it
needs to be modularized for providing the portable function to
enable it to carry out the tasks and to be maintained within the
enclosed structures. Thus, in order to make the mechanical
separation between a 6-axis robotic platform and a modularized
controller possible, all the connectors are embedded on the top
plate of the controller, and the two parts are bolted together.
Hence the mechanical separation becomes quite simple by
disjoining of ve-connectors and four-bolts.
The developed RRXC has to carry out welding tasks to
relatively high accuracy; therefore, the positional error of the
end-effector in the Cartesian coordinate frame should be less than
0.5 mm for ensuring a good welding quality. In order to execute
these good movements of the end-effector, the control software
which makes the RRXC perform the given welding tasks through
the dened actions and its successive combinations. Thus, the
control software is dened into four layers here and the
denitions of each layer are as follows

(1) Task manager: this helps to manage the task lists provided by
the users, and to communicate with the teaching pendant (TP).
(2) Task planner: this takes charge of receiving tasks from the
task manager and then it helps to choose a series of required
actions.
(3) Actions for the task: this takes charge of receiving the actions
from the task planner. Then it helps to generate the trajectory
of the robot through denition of the environmental data and
the robot status from the task executer.
(4) Task executer: this takes charge of controlling the motion
controller and the actuator. It helps the RRXC to execute the

Main Controller
CPU
Board

RS232

USB

Driver #1
Motion
Controller

Laser
Sensor

RS485

Driver #2

AC Servo
Motor #1
AC Servo
M
Motor #2
M

AC Servo
Motor #6

Driver #6

On/Off
Actuator
Controller

Laser
M Sensor
CAP

Welding Machine Controller

Touch Sensor Unit
Arc Sensor Unit

S Shock
Sensor

Welding
Machine

Fig. 7. Conguration of the embedded controller for the mobile welding robot
RRXC.

Teaching Pendant(TP)
Task List

Task Manager

Robot status

Task Management Module

TP Module

Task Planner

Task

Move in the
transverse direction
Move in the
longitudinal direction

Bracket welding

Straight welding

Weaving welding

Laser sensing
Touch sensing

Actions for Task

Action Module
Linear motion of torch
Transverse movement

Motion Command

Longitudinal movement
Start/stop welding

Motion
Generator

Activated sensor
Welding
Command
Welding
Machine
Module

Task Executer
ON/OFF
Command
Robot status
Environmental status

Servo module
ON/OFF module
Sensor module

RS485 Voltage, Current Welding machine

Welding start/stop
controller
AC Servo
motor
RC motor
Shock
sensor

RS232

Laser sensor
Motion Controller

USB

Fig. 8. The four layered architecture and the modules of the RRXC [13].

received tasks and then it deciphers the environmental data

and the robot status data obtained from the sensory system.
Thus, it is noteworthy that the tasks can be performed through
the successive combinations of actions in the layers of actions for
performing the required task. Furthermore, in order to make
additions of new hardware easy, the unit functions of the task
executer are modularized. Figs. 7 and 8 show a diagram of the
four layered architecture and its modules, which makes the
control software run.

5. Utilities
5.1. Wireless teaching pendant using a PDA
The teaching pendant is a hand-held robot control terminal
that provides a convenient means to run the robot programs.
Nowadays, most teaching pendants are connected to a robot
controller by cables. The connecting cables and the size of the
teach pendant are not of concern here but a large, wired teaching
pendant is not suitable for a portable mobile welding robot which
has a controller inside, since a worker should follow the robot to
every location in the into the double-hulled structures.
Thus, there is a great need for wireless teaching pendants to
enable workers to control the number of welding robots without
any physical connections. Fig. 9 shows the existing and the
developed wireless teach pendant and the functions and performance of the wireless teach pendant have been veried from the
eld testing trials carried out throughout this project [14]
(Table 3).

D. Lee et al. / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 27 (2011) 377388

383

180-mm
85-mm

350-mm

Straight typed
welding torch

180-mm

3-DOF Shock sensor

Laser distance sensor with on/off sealing cap
Fig. 11. Sensory systems of laser and shock sensors on the end-effector.

5.3. Portable auxiliary transportation device

Fig. 9. Existing TP of xed type robot and PDA TP.

Table 3
Specications of the xed type welding robot TP and the PDA TP.
Items

Existing TP

PDA typed TP
2

Size
Weight
Connection

180  350 mm
1.3 kg
RS232C

85  180 mm2
0.4 kg
Wireless LAN(IEEE 802.3)

#1

#2

#3
PDA TP
Wireless LAN

#4

Fig. 10. Multiple connections of the PDA TP and the RRXC through the wireless
access point.

Fig. 10 shows the hardware structure of the PDA TP and the

main controller of the RRXC. The CPU board and the motion
controller are connected to the wireless access point with LAN
cables. Fig. 10 also shows the multiple connections for simultaneous control of a number of RRXCs, with just one teach pendant,
will lead to improvements in the operational efciency, and
reduce the cost of labor.
5.2. Sensory systems
The 3-dof shock sensor and laser distance sensor are installed
on the end-effector of the 3P3R manipulator, through harmonic
drive systems. The straight welding torch is also installed on
the top side of the laser distance sensor assembly. In the case
of the shock sensor, since the RRXC works in hazardous
environments, malfunctions such as a wrong motion of the
end-effector may suddenly occur and this can lead to critical
damage to the RRXC. Thus, the shock sensor, which can detect a
sudden impact, should be installed on to the industrial robot.
The laser distance sensor for the initial sensing of the U-shaped
trajectories, rather than the touch sensor, should help reduce
the required time, thus, leading to a rise in efciency and
productivity.

Portable auxiliary transportation devices are important in the

eld applications of the RRXC, since they can control the mobile
functions within the double-hulled structures. This consists of
electric winches, hand-clamps, a bridge plate, a sliding plate,
hand-winches, and steel wire. The electric winch, bridge plate,
and sliding plate are customized to meet a common requirement
on the weight of each device, which should be less than 10 kg for
achieving the hand-held mode in the eld. In order to rigidly
connect both ends of the upper longitudinal stiffeners using steel
wire, the hand-clamps for xing it at one side of the upper
longitudinal stiffeners and the hand-winch for withstanding
tensile forces of the steel wire at the other side are used. This
can then provide a means of transporting the RRXC along the
connected steel wire using the electric winches; with a roller for
interfacing with the steel wire. In addition, the RRXC has an eyebolt of M12 size on the top of the vertical arm, for interfacing with
the electric winch, which has a hook. Thus, it can also provide a
means of lifting the RRXC up and down.
Fig. 11 shows the successive process of tting the RRXC
through a 500  700 mm2 access hole in the double-hulled block.
It also shows that the sliding plate provides a means of
transporting three RRXCs in the longitudinal direction simultaneously, and the bridge plate provides a means of tting through a
500  700 mm2 access hole by supporting the weight of the RRXC
robot. In these cases, to t the system through the access hole,
two electric winches and two workers are needed to carry it
across to the other side. Fig. 12 shows the overall process of
installing the auxiliary transportation devices, commitment
directions of the number of RRXC, and working directions in the
double-hulled block. The retrieval of the robot is carried out by
performing the process in reverse. It is noted that the proposed
transportation system may lead to the useful applications in other
operations, such as transportation of ladders.

6. Workspace analysis and simulation

Fig. 13 shows a kinematic model of the RRX welding robot,
which is a 3P3R manipulator consisting of a PPPRRR serial chain,
where P and R denote prismatic and revolute joints, respectively.
The manipulator has six degrees of freedom with six active joints,
each of which is indicated by an arrow in Fig. 6(a). The DenavitHartenberg parameters used to solve the kinematics of the 3P3R
manipulator shown in Fig. 13 are listed in Table 4, where ai1, ai1,
di, and yi are the link twist angle, link length, joint distance, and
joint angle, respectively, with respect to joint i.
6.1. Workspace analysis
Over several years, various studies have been published on
workspace analysis by Gosselin [15], Merlet [16], Waldron and
Kumar [17], Tsai and Soni [18], Gupta and Roth [19], Sugimoto

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Customized
Winch system

Hand clamp

Transport in longitudinal
direction through the
500 700-mm access hole

Transport in
transverse direction
6 steel-wire
Lift up/down

500-mm
Hand-held
Bridge plate

700-mm

Sliding plate in
longitudinal
direction

Access hole
Working direction
Transportation direction
Steel wire
Winch

Fig. 12. (a) Overall process of transporting the RRXC in double-hulled structures and (b) overall process of installing the auxiliary transportation devices.

d3

Table 4
Denavit-Hartenberg parameters of the 3P3R manipulator.

Z3

L1
Z4
X4

L2

X3

Z1

Z5
X5
X6

d1

X1
X0

Y0

X2
L3

Z6

Z0

d2 Z2

Joint i

ai  1

ai  1

di

yi

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

p/2
p/2
p/2

0
0
0
L1
 L2
0
0

d1
d2
d3
0
0
L3
0

p/2
p/2
p/2

p/2
p/2
a p/6

y4 + p
y5 + 1.5p
y6 + p/2
0

Note: L1 201 mm, L2 120 mm and L3 383.3 mm.

Z7
1

Y{T}

 = 90
 = 60

Y{T0}

 = 30

Z{T0}
X{B}

 = 35

X-axis

et al. [20], Gupta [21], Davidson and Hunt [22], and Stan et al.
[23]. However, most previous works in this area proposed using
the Jacobian approaches together with the conditioning number
limit for nding the manipulator workspaces [24,25]. It should
note that it do not directly consider the required rotary
capabilities in relation to the end-effectors space. For the above
reasons, a new concept of task-oriented workspace that considers
only the predened orientations of an end-effector required in
given welding tasks is introduced here for the aim of design
verication. In order to illustrate the required orientation axes,
the geometric orientation cone is proposed and represented
in Fig. 14. It shows the movement of the welding torch along the
U-shaped welding line. Frame {B} denotes the base frame, and

Initial welding torch direction, Z{T0}

Z{B}

Fig. 13. Kinematic model of the RRX robotic system.

Y{B}=X{T0}

35

90

-1
-1

Projection of Z{T} axes onto XY{T}-plane

0
Y-axis

Projection result

Fig. 14. Measured yaw-pitch angles from U-shaped trajectory welding and their
representation by length on the XY plane by projection.

D. Lee et al. / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 27 (2011) 377388

385

clear, it should note that the value of represented yaw-pitch

angle could be thought as the aperture angle of the orientation
cone in Fig. 14.
Here, the task-oriented workspace can be dened as the set of
points that the welding torch tip can approach with satisfying
predened rotational capability of 351 with respect to the initial
tool frame.
For the given 3P3R welding manipulator, the results of the
workspace analysis are shown in Fig. 15. The conventional
reachable workspace represents the larger area enclosing the

frame {T} denotes the tool frame. The initial tool frame for the
welding process {T0} is dened to be rotated (901, 01, 1141) with
respect to frame {B}, in order to have symmetric yaw-pitch angles.
The measured yaw-pitch angles of the welding torch, with respect
to frame {T0}, are expressed as the length from the origin by the
projection to the YZ plane, which is shown in Fig. 14. The required
yaw-pitch angles are determined as 351 about the z{T0} during the
entire welding process. To perform the welding process successfully, the 351 of yaw-pitch rotational capability should be
guaranteed. To make the concept of geometric orientation cone

Task-oriented workspace on YX plane for theta = 35degree

1200

Task workspace

1000
X: -525
Y: 760

X-axis

800

600

X: 525
Y: 725

X: -680
Y: 640

Task-oriented workspace

400

200

Rack

Base coordinate frame

-200
-600

-400

-200

0
Y-axis

200

400

600

Task-oriented workspace on XZ plane for theta = 35degree

800
700
X: 880
Y: 560

Task workspace

600
500

X: 760
Y: 550

Z-axis

400

Task-oriented workspace

300
200
100

Base coordinate frame

X: 725
Y: -100

Rack

-100
-200
0

100

200

300

400
500
X-axis

600

700

Fig. 15. Results of the workspace analysis in the yx and zx planes.

800

900

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D. Lee et al. / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 27 (2011) 377388

Fig. 16. Simulation results in terms of the interferences avoidance with existing structures.

other two workspaces of the task-oriented workspace of

manipulator and task workspace of U-shaped trajectories. And
the results also note that the task-oriented workspace also
encloses the task workspace. Since the task workspace is much
smaller than the task-oriented workspace, the size of the current
RRX welding robot could be signicantly decreased even based
solely on the kinematic analysis.

Longitudinal stiffeners (Upper)

Clamp

Steel wire

6.2. Simulations for obstacle avoidance

Electric winch

Height 3-m
Since many U-shaped trajectories exist, there is a great need
for robot-simulations to generate the welding paths of the endeffector, and to check for interference with existing structures,
such as the web faces of the longitudinal stiffeners. Simulation
studies can also help to determine the strokes of each axis and the
length of each link of the manipulator, in terms of satisfactory
performances of the required tasks in the actual workspaces.
Thus, it leads the RRXC to successfully perform numerous welding
tasks in the eld without any collisions. Fig. 16 shows the
simulation results for avoiding interference with the web face of
the longitudinal stiffeners, using the ROBCAD program through
predened CAD data of the target U-shaped part.

Clamp

Roller

RRXC

Steel wire
Access hole

Hand-winch

Welding machine

Longitudinal stiffeners (Lower)

Left-vertical weaving welding

7. Field tests
The eld tests for the application of the developed RRXC have
been carried out in double-hulled blocks over a period of several
months. As mentioned earlier, the RRXC can t through the
500  700 mm2 access hole with the help of the set of auxiliary
transportation devices, and the RRXC can be located at a U-shaped
trajectory by transportations in the longitudinal and transversal
directions. Then, after nishing a welding job, it can be also
moved to the next U-shaped trajectory by the help of an installed
electric winch on a steel wire.
Through these repetitive executions of welding tasks and
transportations in the double-hulled structure, all performances
of the RRXC have been successfully demonstrated in terms of the
welding quality, the welding functions, the electrical reliability,
and the overall operational convenience.
Fig. 17(a) shows the view of the actual installation of the RRXC,
with the set of auxiliary transportation devices in double-hulled
structures located within the ship-building factory. The 220 V
supplies of single phase are only used in driving the electric
winch, not the other devices. Fig. 17(b) also shows the RRXC
performing a welding task, with representation of the several
cables from the outside of the double-hulled structure. It consists
of the welding cable from the welding machine, the power cable
of 220 V and CO2 gas cable. However, the set of welding wire
spool and feeder, which is connected with the RRXC by a torch
cable, is typically located just behind the RRXC. Fig. 17(c), of a

Wire
spool/feeder

Right-scallop welding

RRXC

Fig. 17. Field tests for validating the (a) installations of auxiliary transportation
devices (b) connecting cables from the welding machine, and (c) actual arcwelding experiments in the U-shaped trajectory.

series of four Figures, shows the actual arc-welding experiments

using the RRXC. It consists of vertical weaving, horizontal multipass, and scallop welding procedures. The welding voltage and
the arc current are 26 V and 250 A, respectively. The welding
speeds are 0.54 and 0.24 m/min, respectively, for the vertical and
horizontal welding processes.

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387

Fig. 18. Successful welding quality of U-shaped trajectories.

7.1. Experimental results

In eld tests, the RRXC together with the set of auxiliary
transportation devices successfully demonstrated that the welding quality and operational convenience are acceptable to
industrial engineers. These conclusions are made based on the
following experimental results:
(1) The required time in one successful sensing of the U-shaped
trajectory is reduced from 3.2 to 2.0 min compared to the
previous 6-axis articulated welding arm using the touch
sensor. In other words, the laser sensor system shows
signicant improvements in efciency and productivity, with
a large reduction in the time required to accomplish the Ushaped trajectory.
(2) The welding quality, from repetitive performances of the
welding tasks in various types of U-shaped trajectories, has
been evaluated by the industrial engineers, and is deemed
satisfactory, as shown in Fig. 18. The welding conditions of
Fig. 18 are also represented.
(3) Some difculty exists in operating the electric winch and the
hand-winch, even though it provides convenient conditions in
operating the RRXC. The operators feel unrest from the steel
wires, since it seems to be quite weak.
There are some requests for the improvement of the slack
status of the motor cables of the RRXC. Since the third axis of the
vertical arm has a large stroke of 750 mm, using a multi-stage
mechanism, the motor cables should be slack in the minimum
stroke of the third axis. This leads to interference between the
RRXC and the structures, such as the web face of the longitudinal
stiffeners, in the end stroke of the rst axis. Thus, this problem has
been solved by changing the socket direction of the wiring and
adjusting the length of the cables.

8. Conclusion
Some difculties in the applications of the previous fullautonomous welding systems have been claried through
numerous experiments, which have lead to requests for a robotic
system that is easy to handle in the narrow and conned
structures. For this purpose, a new type of welding robotic
system, having a modularized controller, has been developed to
perform the welding of U-shaped trajectories in the enclosed
structures, with auxiliary transportation devices. As represented
above, the welding functions and mobility using auxiliary
transportation devices have been successfully carried out and
veried through the ROBCAD simulations and eld testing in real
double-hulled blocks, during a 6 month period. The modular

controller helps the entire systems to decrease the number of

controller cables, and to prevent negative inuences of electric
noise. Signicant results have indicated that the separation of the
welding and the mobility part is a great help in operating robotic
systems, compared with a fully autonomous one of comparatively
huge size. The wireless teaching pedant makes it possible for one
operator to manage a number of RRXC systems; increasing the
efciency of the production. Although research and eld tests are
continuing, conclusions can be made that this system will be
denitely a great practical help, and will signicantly improve the
productivity of welding inside of the double-hulled structures.

Acknowledgements
This research was supported in part by the Brain Korea 21
Program of the Korean Ministry of Education, and Daewoo
Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) of Republic of Korea.
One of the authors, namely, Donghun Lee, would like to express his
thanks to Prof. Jongwon Kim, Tea-Wan Kim, and Kyu-Yeul Lee for
their continuing assistance and guidance. The authors would also like
to acknowledge the fact that Namkuk Ku has played major roles in
programming the jobs and the eld testing of the RRXC throughout
the project.
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