Design of Passive Constant‑Force End‑Effector for Robotic Polishing of Optical Reflective Mirrors

Polishing plays an indispensable role in optical processing,especially for large-aperture optical reflective mirrors with freeform surfaces.Robotic polishing requires effective control of the contact force between the robot and the mirror during processing.In order to maintain a constant contact force during polishing,traditional polishing robots rely on closed-loop control of air cylinders,whose performances heavily rely on high-fidelity force sensing and real-time control.This paper proposes to employ a compliant constant-force mechanism in the end-effector of a polishing robot to passively maintain a constant force between the robot and the mirror,thus eliminating the requirement for force sensing and closed-loop control.The compliant constant force mechanism utilizing the second bending mode of fixed-guided compliant beams is adopted and elaborated for the passive end-effector.An end-effector providing a constant contact force of 40 N is designed and prototyped.The polishing experiment shows that the passive constant-force end-effector provides stable contact force between the robot and the mirror with fluctuation within 3.43 N,and achieves RMS(Root Mean Square)lower thanλ/10(λ=632.8 nm)of the polished surface of the largeaperture optical reflective mirror.It is concluded that the constant-force compliant mechanism provides a low-cost and reliable solution for force control in robotic polishing.

Stroke optimization of a novel multi-station rotary polishing robot based on workspace analysis

In order to meet the polishing requirement of faucets and other products,a novel multi-station rotary polishing robot is designed,which is a PPPR + RR type of degree of freedom( DOF) distribution structure,and is similar to dual-arm robot. Forward and inverse kinematic analysis is carried out by robot modeling. In order to make this robot structure more compact,first of all,X,Y and Z three moving degrees of freedom( DOF) limit stroke polishing need is calculated by using an artificial fish swarm algorithm,which analyzes dexterous workspace of this robot. Then,on the basis of the above analysis,the three DOF stroke is optimized. Simulation and polishing experimental results verify that this polishing robot with optimized stroke parameters can meet the polishing needs of faucets and other bathroom pieces.