Finishing of dies and moulds An approach to quality‐orientated automation with the help of industrial robots

Abstract

Describes a project to develop an intelligent robot system to mechanize the finishing of dies and moulds. Examines the concept of the finishing of surfaces and the distinction between grinding and polishing.

Robotic finishing process – An extrusion die case study

“…Scientific approaches to realize robot assisted finishing were started more than 30 years ago [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], since articulated robots gained more acceptance in industry. Despite of various published Current automated finishing techniques are almost not applicable on parts with free form surfaces and function relevant edges, as commonly found in moulds and dies.…”

“…Manual finishing of injection, extrusion and die casting moulds can take up to 50% of the total production time which represents around 12-15% of the manufacturing costs [2][3][4][5][6]. In order to remain competitive against low-wage countries, the tool and die maker has to keep shorter delivery times with increasing requirements on form and surface quality.…”

Robot Ergonomics: Optimizing Robot Work

“…For this inspiration I am grateful to him. Thanks are also due to the many students who worked with me enthusiastically in this area over the years: Hannan Lechtman, Andy Robinson, Ed Fisher, Richard Pennington, Oded Mai- Song and Liu, 1993 Dies and molds finishing In-process inspection of robotic finishing operation Performance measurement Schmidt and Schauer, 1994 Assembly Robot design for repetitive assembly motions Motion optimization Agrawal and Veeraklaew, 1997 Assembly redesign Design of flexible feeder for variable assembly Cycle-time estimation Goldberg, Craig and Carlisle, 1997 Kitting Design of robotic kitting facilities and methods for flexible assembly Workplace design; Methods planning Tamaki and Nof, 1991 Assembly cell design Integration of sensors, task plans, and assembly execution Sensor and task planning Tung and Kak, 1996 Mobile robots Path planning to avoid obstacles in an uncertain environment Method planning: Time / motion optimization Kimmel, Kiryati, and Bruckstein, 1994 Interactive mobile robots A language for supervisory control of a mobile robot fleet Human-robot interaction Causse and Crowley, 1993 Electric power generation Design of manipulator work in an overhead power generation facility Parallel motion planning Tanaka et al, 1996 Telemanipulation Design of telepresence controllers Human-robot interface Suss, 1991;Kazerooni and Moore, 1997 Space telerobotics Work method planning for antenna assembly in space Motion planning and simulation Morikawa et al, 1990 Space shuttle manipulator Simulation of interaction between human intuitive controller and remote manipulator Human-robot interaction Clover and Cruz, 1997 Safety system Design of computer vision and speech recognition for safety control Safety; Interaction Baerveldt, 1992 Hospital robot Design of fetch and carry tasks, navigation in crowded hallways…”