Robot-assisted laser ablation for 3D surfaces. Application for paint removal with ultrashort pulse laser

Abstract

In this work, a robot-assisted laser cleaning system is presented that allows the automatic processing of 3D objects with arbitrary geometry. The system is based on the integration of a femtosecond pulse laser with a 6-degree-of-freedom (6 DOF) robotic arm and a laser profilometer to capture the geometry of the workpiece. An automatic procedure is performed to generate cleaning paths over the geometry, which is finally targeted by a laser source by means of the prescribed robot motion; thus, both the working distance and the normal incidence of the laser beam are kept fixed for each point on the surface. The manipulator allows displacements and changes of orientation of the object to be processed following the programmed paths in a full 3D solution. The system was tested by performing the cleaning over different curved painted metal surfaces. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method that improves the efficiency of the automatic laser cleaning of 3D objects and further promotes its application to other ablation processes.