ROBOTIC APPLICATION FOR ABRASIVE BELT MACHINING OF COMPLEX AIRCRAFT METAL PARTS

Surface finishing applications are still cumbersome manual tasks, therefore, robotization of the process is of great interest as it allows for automation and increased versatility. However, finishing processes are difficult to automate, mainly because of the variation in material removal. In particular, the variables involved undergo changes that modify the material removal rate. This paper proposes a methodology for modeling material removal automatically based on experimental data. The procedure consists of monitoring the material removed from the parts under study that are in an automated precision measuring system during the finishing process. Based on the experimental models, a control algorithm for continuous material removal is presented. It guarantees a homogeneous surface finish by varying the robot feed rate. Finally, the results of several experimental material removal models under different process conditions and the validation of the proposed control algorithm are presented. The results show that the proposed method achieves a substantial improvement in the homogeneity of the finish.