Integration of CAM off-line programming in robot high-accuracy machining

Actual industrial robotic systems offer performance to effectively cope with the requirements in manufacturing dealing with flexibility and quality. However, their known limits in accuracy do not allow to extend their field of application to high-accuracy machining, actually covered by state-of-the-art CNC machine tools. The European Project COMET has recently proposed an approach to develop a robotic reconfigurable workcell with enhanced accuracy for machining, through the full integration of different theoretical models, technological solutions and manufacturing strategies. The present paper presents and demonstrates the effectiveness of a demo reconfigurable machining workcell for one of its possible configurations, based on CAM off-line programming. In particular, an experimental campaign has been designed and realized in order to discuss the dimensional and geometrical quality obtained for an aluminium automotive part in comparison with quality and costs offered by a standard 5-axis CNC machine tool.