An Offline Programming Method for the Robotic Deburring of Aerospace Components

Abstract

Deburring of aerospace components is a complex task in case of large single pieces designed and optimized to deliver many mechanical functions. A constant high quality requires accurate 3D surface contouring operations with engineered tool compliance and cutting power. Moreover, aeronautic cast part production is characterized by small lot sizes with high variability of geometries and defects. Despite robots are conceived to provide the necessary flexibility, reconfigurability and efficiency, most robotic workcells are very limited by too long programming and setup times, especially at changeover. The paper reports a design method dealing with the integrated development of process and production system, and analyzes and compares a CAD-based and a digitizer based offline programming strategy. The deburring of gear transmission housings for aerospace applications serves as a severe test field. The strategies are compared by the involved costs and times, learning easiness, production downtimes and machining accuracy. The results show how the reconfigurability of the system together with the exploitation of offline programming tools improves the robotic deburring process

Industrial robotic machining: a review

“…Machining quality was another important topic on top of an archived human-like operation. Leali et al [29] developed an offline programming method for robot deburring of aerospace components. In their research, costs and times, learning easiness, production downtimes and machining accuracy were compared in two programming methods which can perform the machining with in the required tolerances.…”

Off-line nominal path generation of 6-DoF robotic manipulator for edge finishing and inspection processes

“…Deburring processes have been identified as the bottleneck in many machine industries. Anthropomorphous robots are the best state of the art compromise between performance and flexibility for automated deburring tasks [2]. They provide larger work volumes, safety and efficiency at a lower cost than CNC machines.…”

“…Orientation of the end-effector is found by multiplying all rotation matrices, because, the lengths of the links and offsets cannot affect the orientation. The orientation matrix is then: Ĉ (0,6) = Ĉ (0,1) Ĉ (1,2) Ĉ (2,3) Ĉ (3,4) Ĉ (4,5) Ĉ (5,6) Ĉ (0,6) = (e ũ 3 θ 1 e −ũ 1 2 )(e ũ 3 θ 2 )(e ũ 3 3 e ũ 1 π 2 )(e ũ 3 4 e −ũ 1 π 2 )(e ũ 1 π 2 )(e ũ 3 6 ) = (e ũ 3 θ 1 )(e −ũ 1 2 e ũ 3 ( 2 +θ 3 ) e ũ 1 π 2 )(e ũ 3 4 )(e −ũ 1 π 2 e ũ 3 5 e ũ 1 π 2 )(e ũ 3 6 ) = (e ũ 3 θ 1 )(e ũ 2 23 )(e ũ 3 4 )(e ũ 2 5 )(e ũ 3 6 ) Then, Ĉ (0,6) = e ũ 3 θ 1 e ũ 2 23 e ũ 3 4 e ũ 2 5 e ũ 3 6 (2.15)…”

Off-line programming and simulation from CAD drawings: Robot-assisted sheet metal bending

“…In fact, most of OLP software is not intuitive to use, some are dedicated to a specific robot manufacturer and can only be applied (with reliability) in situations where the robot surrounding environment is known a priori and well modeled. In addition, robot calibration for OLP solutions continues to be a laborious task in which error is always present [3].…”

“…A robotic CAD/CAM system that allows industrial robots to move along cutter location data without using any robot language is in [7]. A CAD-based and a digitizer-based OLP strategy are analyzed for the application to the deburring of gear transmission housings for aerospace applications [3]. Also, CAD-based OLP has been applied for the customization of processes in the textile industry [8].…”