Optimum Path Planning of Robotic Free Abrasive Polishing Process

Abstract

In the rapid spray metal tooling, high efficient polishing process can improve the mold quality and shorten the lead time of the rapid tool. The polishing of the tool is frequently carried out manually, and the introduction of robotic polishing can minimize the production times and enhance the efficiency obviously. Robotic polishing process with free abrasive and soft polishing tool is developed in this paper to fit for the application of commercial industrial robot, which is hard to be controlled online for its close control construction. A partition & flexible mapping method based on CAM is also proposed for the uniform robotic polishing path on the mould curved surface. In order to compensate the elastic deformation and the abrasion of the soft polishing tool, the robotic polishing path should be offset along the direction normal to the surface with the pre-compressed value and the abrasion compensation value to keep a steady normal polishing force. The optimal pre-compressed and abrasion compensation value are verified by the experiments. The blank holder of punch mould produced by rapid spray metal tooling is finally polished to test the robotic polishing system.KeywordsPolishingIndustrial robotfree abrasivePath PlanningRapid spray metal tooling