Teaching and control of robot contour-tracking using contact point detection

New methods for teaching and controlling contour-tracking tasks based on contact sensing are developed to improve robotic machining. Accurate contact point detection is introduced to estimating a work contour path with high reliability. These teaching methods reduce the effort for task teaching and improve adaptability to handle changes in task specifications without re-teaching. Real-time contour tracking control using this contact sensing to suppress work uncertainties in process is presented. Experimental results for practical grinding tasks using a 6 DOF manipulator validate our methods