Design and Implementation of a Quick-Change End-Effector Control System for Lightweight Robotic Arms in Workpiece Assembly Applications

This paper presents a lightweight end-effector quick-change control system for robotic arms, designed for scenarios such as workpiece assembly that require rapid switching between multiple end-effectors. The system utilizes a proprietary quick-change mechanism as its hardware foundation. Its main disk employs a modular and lightweight design compatible with small collaborative robots like the UR3. Motor-driven claws enable automatic tool locking and unlocking. To unify control interfaces for heterogeneous motor-driven tools, this paper proposes a universal peripheral adapter circuit based on the RS485 bus and a tool ID recognition mechanism, establishing a standardized four-wire interface for multi-tool sharing. At the control level, embedded control programs were developed for both the quick-change device and the tool end. An upper-level control platform based on ROS and MoveIt was established to achieve automatic quick-change and task sequence control during typical robotic operations such as “drilling-assembly workpiece.” Statistics from 20 locking time and communication success rate tests, along with 30 complete assembly experiments, demonstrate that the average quick-change locking time is 1.81 s, communication success rate is 100%, and a 93.3% assembly process success rate. These results validate the feasibility and stability of the proposed lightweight robotic arm end-effector quick-change control system in workpiece assembly scenarios, providing an expandable and reproducible quick-change control solution for multi-task operations of lightweight robotic arms.