Real-time monitoring and control system of an industrial robot with 6 degrees of freedom for grinding and polishing of aspherical mirror
Aspherical mirrors have higher performance and lighter weight than spherical mirrors. However, it is not easy to process, measure, and evaluate their shapes. In particular, large aperture aspherical mirrors used in satellites require high precision and take a long time to process. The conventional process is machined using a computer numerical control with a gantry structure. However, there is a disadvantage that it is difficult to process complex shapes due to lack of degrees of freedom. In order to overcome these problems, we developed a shape processing system using an industrial robot with 6 degrees of freedom. The system consists of toolpath generation program, real-time robot monitoring, and control program. We have verified the performance of the developed system through simulation software provided by the robot manufacturer as well as actual robot operation.
Robotic Arm Manipulation Under IEC 61499 and ROS-based Compatible Control Scheme
Currently, the generation of traditional and straight-line production systems are being replaced with the objective of generating flexible and modular production systems. To achieve this goal, one of the main alternatives used by enterprises is the integration of robotic systems in the production cells. This robotic integration, indirectly allows robots to be compatible with the concepts of Smart Factories and Industry 4.0, where the high processing and communication capacities of the devices allows better and faster data exchange among the devices conforming the system. IEC-61499 proposes an architecture for the generation of distributed and modular production systems under Industry 4.0 paradigm. This paper proposes the development of an based IEC-61499 agile architecture implementation using a low-cost controller as Raspberry Pi 3B for control of KUKA youBot™ industrial robotic arm in a Pick and Place process.
Simulating a nonspherical surface profile
A method to approximate a profile of a nonspherical optical surface that has manufacturing defects is described. To approximate measured deviations between the real nonspherical surface profile and designed one are used. Approximation results are new values of coefficients in a formula that specifies nonspherical surface profile. Approximation is carried out to analyze the effect of manufacturing defects on image quality of an optical system that includes the modified nonspherical surface.