Research on polishing path planning and simulation of small mobile robot

To polish a large scaled free-form surface using a small mobile robot is a new idea in the field of mold manufacturing. However, along with the application of this innovative concept, path planning of the robot becomes an inevitable but hard work because of the complex free-form surface of mold. According to the actual dimensions of the designed small mobile robot, a path planning method that based on the algorithm of direction paralleled is proposed in this paper. Moreover, a simulation of robot polishing along the planned path on a free-form surface is implemented by using OpenGL as the graphic tool to validate the method. The simulation results show the polishing situation of the robot clearly, and also provide useful data for later experiments.