Automation of Polishing Work by an Industrial Robot : System of Polishing Robot

Abstract

This study deals with the automation of polishing work by use of an industrial robot with 6 degrees of freedom. Since polishing work, which takes much time, requires experience, patience and skill, it is manually performed by skilled workers. This study aims at rationalizing such difficult polishing work by introducing a robot and CAD technology. The arm of the robot can be equipped with two kinds of polishing tools, i.e., a rotational tool or an ultrasonic vibrational one, to cope with various cofigurations of the workpiece surface. In addition, the system allows collision-free polishing paths derived from the CAD system to be expressed in the robot coordinate system by use of a touch sensor. The system is found to be effective for obtaining a smooth workpiece surface, based on several experimental results.