Study of the application of a collaborative robot for machining tasks

Abstract

The importance of collaborative robots is increasing very fast in the industry. They have several advantages over the ‘classical’ robot arms: they may work side-by-side with humans, their environment needs less adaptation, they may be easily transported, etc. Their joints are more elastic than those in classical robots. For this reason, they are less suited for machining. In this work, a collaborative robot, a sensor of 6 Degree of Freedom (DOF) and a spindle with flex-shaft attachment are used to perform milling operations on soft materials. An inner/outer loop control is being developed to control the movements and the cutting forces. The experiments have been designed to evaluate the capability of the robot with milling operations with different parameters. An analysis of the dimensions and the finished surface will be carried out. The contribution of this article is to determine the possibilities and limitations of the collaborative robots in machining applications, with external control of forces.