An approach for solving the three-objective arc welding robot path planning problem

Multi-objective welding robot path planning is becoming an important problem owing to the developing requirements of industrial production intelligence. An approach with path planning and optimization is proposed for solving the problem of arc welding. A rapidly exploring random tree* (RRT*)-based local path search algorithm is applied to generate a set of collision-free paths between any two welding seams, and the global search algorithm based on the decomposition-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA/D) framework is introduced to improve welding production efficiency by optimizing the requested contradictory objectives, namely, path length, trajectory smoothness and energy consumption. Both proposed algorithms are tested in different instances and on an actual welding workpiece, and the results prove that the proposed method could be useful in industrial production.