Assessment of micro-terrain features using dynamic tactile pressure sensor

Abstract

This paper presents a novel methodology to assess the geometrical features of a component surface, from which suitable tool operation path can be derived. More specifically, a dynamic pressure sensor is proposed to be used for detection, characterization and estimation of the micro-terrain features on a three dimensional surface. Compared with the current methods of using profilometers or GOMs, the proposed method can provide faster and more practical scanning results that take into account the conditions of both the surface and the tool. Most importantly, the surface can be assessed without the need of removing the component from its application setup. The proposed method is validated experimentally using a representative set of tool and workpiece, which proves the method's feasibility to detect and characterize micro-terrain features, especially elevation features. Due to the limitation of the dynamic sensor, the method can only estimate the dimension of the micro-terrain feature at relatively low accuracy.