Velocity anisotropy of an industrial robot

Industrial robots are part of production systems and it is important to place them into the system according to their properties and behaviour. The information, obtained from the technical sheets of robots, about workspace (its dimensions and shape) is insufficient for designing the production system. The information about mobility is missing. To represent the behaviour of the robot in the workspace, velocity anisotropy of the robot is introduced and defined as the length of the shortest velocity ellipsoid axes, which can be constructed for any position of robot in its tool centre point. The position of a tool centre point is equivalent to the point in the workspace. A graphical representation of the 3D workspace with included velocity anisotropy is then performed and an example for a design of a robotised welding production system is given. In this example the benefits of the graphical representation of the workspace with included velocity anisotropy are presented and discussed.