A Calibration Method for the Integrated Design of Finishing Robotic Workcells in the Aerospace Industry

Industrial robotics provides high flexibility and reconfigurability, cost effectiveness and user friendly programming for many applications but still lacks in accuracy. An effective workcell calibration reduces the errors in robotic manufacturing and contributes to extend the use of industrial robots to perform high quality finishing of complex parts in the aerospace industry. A novel workcell calibration method is embedded in an integrated design framework for an in-depth exploitation of CAD-based simulation and offline programming. The method is composed of two steps: a first offline calibration of the workpiece-independent elements in the workcell layout and a final automated online calibration of workpiece-dependent elements. The method is finally applied to a robotic workcell for finishing aluminum housings of helicopter gear transmissions, characterized by complex and non-repetitive shapes, and by severe dimensional and geometrical accuracy demands. Experimental results demonstrate enhanced performances of the robotic workcell and improved final quality of the housings

Experimental Investigation of Sources of Error in Robot MachiningRobotics in Smart Manufacturing

This document is divided into two parts. First a survey is given presenting sources of error in robot machining and outlining their dependencies. Environment dependent, robot dependent and process dependent errors are addressed. The second part analyses the errors according to their source, magnitude and frequency spectrum. Experiments under different conditions represent a typical set of industrial applications and allow a qualified evaluation. This analysis enables the qualified choice of suitable compensation mechanisms in order to reduce the errors in robot machining and to increase machining accuracy