Design and research of a new high power railroad tie laser cutting robot

With the continuous improvement of positioning accuracy of high-power fiber lasers and industrial robots, the use of robots for laser processing has been widely applied in the field of industrial manufacturing. This article designs a laser cutting robot and control method, using ABB-IRB120 dual robotic arms, specifically applied to the cutting of railway sleeper steel bars. The robot vision system can automatically recognize the steel bars of railway sleepers, and the overall cutting process is controlled by a safe and reliable PLC. The follow-up system is controlled by STM32 and integrates a dual loop competition algorithm to establish a control model namely “feedforward compensation PID+sliding mode control”. The visualization simulation experiment results of trajectory tracking analysis have verified that the model has the advantages of fast response and high control accuracy. The experimental results show that the robot can achieve high-speed, stable, and precise cutting of rail sleepers, and can meet the needs of cutting various types of rail sleeper steel bars.