On-line programming of industrial robots is time consuming and requires experience in robot programming. Due to this fact, small and medium sized enterprises are reserved about the implementation of robots in production. Ongoing research in the field is focused on finding more intuitive interfaces and methods for programming to make the interaction with robots more natural and intuitive. This master thesis presents a method for manipulation of industrial robots utilizing an external device other than the traditional teach pendant. The base of the method is a PC application which handles the program logic and the communication between an external device and an ABB robot. The program logic is designed to be modular in order to allow customization of the method, both in terms of its functions and the type of external device that is used for the method.

Since gestures are one of the most common forms of communication between humans, it is interesting to investigate gestures for the purpose to make manipulation of industrial robots more intuitive. Therefore, a Leap Motion controller is presented as an example of an external device which could be used as an alternative to the teach pendant. The Leap Motion controller is specialised on hand and finger position tracking with both good absolute accuracy and precision. Further, its associated Software Development Kit (SDK) has the capabilities which are required to enable implementation of a teach pendants most fundamental functionalities. Results obtained by a user test show that the developed application is both easy and fast to use but has poor robustness.