Robotic polishing systems

This article presents a graphical task-level robot-programming tool for polishing parts held by the robot gripper. The proposed approach allows a user-friendly manner to specify the polishing curves over a CAD model of the part. The user also specifies the width of the abrasive polishing bands to be used and the pressure exerted. The GUI aids the user in verifying that the whole surface is to be correctly polished. Once the task specification is done, a task-planning module provides the algorithms to guarantee the time-optimum sequence of robot trajectories to perform the polishing of the curves over the part, avoiding collisions with the obstacles of the cell. The programming tool has been in actual polishing tasks at the industrial company Polits Catalunya using a Staubli RX-90 robot. The proposed approach can be easily extended to other similar tasks like cutting or material dispensing.