Développement d'une cellule robotisée de détourage des composites

Abstract

Robot machining is a new challenge in robotics as it requires both high stiffness and accuracy of the robot at hand. Until now, machining operations have been mainly realized with numerical-control machine-tools. This paper pertains to the optimization of the use of industrial robots for finishing tasks knowing the process cutting phenomena and the robot stiffness. Composite parts trimming is used as an illustrative machining operation in the framework of this paper. On the one hand, the robot was modeled and its joint stiffness values were identified. On the other hand, tests for composites parts trimming were performed in order to determine optimal cutting conditions guaranteeing the integrity (a good quality of) the part and satisfying productivity. Moreover, cutting forces were measured during the tests thanks to a wrench sensor mounted on the robot end-effector. From those two parallel studies and from a given placement of the part into the robot workspace, the robot end-effector displacements can be determined. Then those displacements could be minimized by determining the best placement of the part into the robot workspace. For operations that hardly stress the robot this solution can significantly reduce the robot end-effector displacements, without modifying the robot control. © AFM, EDP Sciences 2011.