METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING AN INDUSTRIAL ROBOT

An equipment for controlling an industrial robot, which robot has a plurality of rotation and/or translation axles (ax 1-6), comprising a motor (15) at each of said axles for generating desired movements of the arms and/or the wrist, of which the robot is constituted, a sensor at each of the axles for measuring axle angle and/or axle position, a servo (9) for each of the axles for controlling the motors based on measurement values from the sensors, and a path generator (8) for generating at least one reference (&phgr;ref, &phgr;ref, &tgr;ffw) for each of the servos (9). The equipment comprises an apparatus (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+parts of 8+18A+18B) at least one of the axles, which apparatus comprises a first device (18A) for calculation of the expected interference moment value (&tgr;distexp) of said axle when the movable parts of the robot is not exposed to any external forces by interaction with the operator (64) or other things in the surroundings of the robot, and a second device (18B) for comparing this expected interference moment value (&tgr;distexp) with values of the moment reference (&tgr;mr) of the servo (9) and/or with values of the moment (&tgr;m) of the motor and/or with values of the moment of the axle (14) and for forming, based on this comparison, a signal (&tgr;control) for controlling the path generator (8). A method for programming/adjusting the movement of a robot is also included.