Robotic Machining: Challenges and Chances

Abstract

Motivated by the technology of intelligent manufacturing, robots are springing up like mushrooms in a variety of machining applications, such as robotic milling, grinding, drilling and polishing etc. Although some fundamental problems, such as the mechanism of material-removing processes, how to design tools and plan tool paths, have been thoroughly investigated in the traditional manufacturing society, robotic processing still has to encounter unavoidable obstacles to achieve high performance machining. In order to maximize the potential of robotic processing, it is urgent to understand the theoretic and technique challenges and overcome them. This talk is intended to review the latest development of robotic processing, to discuss the challenges of robotic machining process from the interdisciplinary viewpoint, and to present the new development results achieved by our team. In particular, a successful application case, i.e., robotic grinding of blade parts, will be introduced. At the end, new trends and chances in this field will be outlined.