Development of Metal-Mold Polishing Robot System with Contact Pressure Control Using CAD/CAM Data

Abstract This paper presents a new metal-mold polishing robot system which consists of a 6 D.O.F. industrial robot, a compliant polishing end-effector and a robot controller communicating with a CAD/CAM system. The end-effector consists of an air grinder, a spring coil and a sliding guide driven by a stepping motor. The tool path is composed by both a nominal path on the surface of the mold model and an offset relating to the contact pressure based on the end-effector's elasticity. The experimental results support the efficiency of the contact pressure control path as to preventing over-polishing at an edge.