Compound control of the robotic polishing process basing on the assistant electromagnetic field

Abstract

Robotic polishing process has been widely used for the metal mould finishing. The quality and the efficiency of the polishing process are important to the lead time and the lifecycle of the mould. In order to improve the robotic polishing process with free abrasive and soft polishing tool, the compound control system made up of compensable path planning module and assistant electromagnetic field is developed in this paper to fit for the common commercial industrial robot, which is hard to be controlled online for its closed control system. The compensable path planning module based on CAM module is developed to generate the uniform robotic polishing path for the complex curvature surface, which can also compensate the elastic deformation and the abrasion of the soft polishing tool. A minitype electromagnet is also connected to the robotic end-effector, which can act on the polishing process along with the robotic moving. The electromagnet is coiled as solenoid that the polishing tool and the electrical spindle can be fixed in the hollow. Experiments are executed to test the influence between the electromagnetic field intensity and the polishing removal efficiency. The result shows that the polished material removal can increase obviously with the increasing of the electromagnetic field intensity.