Tech Briefs Magazine - April 2024 - MD-17

significant implications for
industrial
grinding tasks, enabling operators to
vary contact angles along the grinding
path without altering force control
settings, thus maintaining consistent
pressure.
Contour following, another advancement
leveraging omnidirectional compliance,
stands in contrast to traditional
systems that struggle with maintaining
constant force against irregular shapes.
Contour tracking permits real-time automatic
adjustments to force direction, ensuring
consistent exertion, regardless of
surface contours or robot movements.
These dual features increase the output
quality of the material abrasion
task and reduce the time required for
trajectory tuning. Simply put, contact
angle and contour following can reduce
deployment time from hours to
minutes. This facilitates the deployment
process and minimizes the need
for
constant adjustments, enabling
workpieces to be completed faster and
to a higher standard than previously
possible.
Enhanced Durability with
Vibration Reduction
Vibration reduction is essential for
material abrasion tasks. Excess vibrations
can damage workpieces and significantly
shorten the operational lifespan of mechanical
systems, especially in high-vibration
applications like grinding.
Flexiv tackles this issue by reducing vibrations
by approximately 25-50 percent
through joint torque control. This not
only extends the operational lifespan of
the equipment used by the robot but also
enhances the overall workpiece quality
by eliminating the 'swirls and whirls' on
surfaces that vibration can cause during
the material removal process.
Future Outlook
The field of robotics is rapidly advancing,
and the recent developments in
adaptive robotics have enabled groundbreaking
solutions to be created which
were simply impossible with traditional
collaborative robotic technology.
Robotic material abrasion still presents
formidable challenges; however, direct
force control, omnidirectional compliance,
and vibration reduction make
effective solutions feasible and practical.
Being able to sense with more precision
than previously possible opens
up a new range of automation possibilities.
When we couple this with
platforms like the NOEMA artificial
intelligence system, there are practically
no limits to what processes can be
automated.
Material abrasion automation is evolving
in tandem with advancements in
hardware and intelligent software solutions,
marking a shift from the traditional
labor-intensive approaches and
execution methods which were common
only a few years ago.
Looking forward to the future, automated
material abrasion could become
as commonplace as automated screw
fastening or pick and place applications.
This article was written by Ran Xu,
Robotics Engineering Manager, Flexiv
Robotics (Santa Clara, CA). For more
information, visit www.flexiv.com.
          
     
  
    

     
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  

       
  
       
    
  
      
        

   
   
  

Motion Design, April 2024
      
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   
   
17
      
    
   
      
       
       
http://www.flexiv.com http://info.hotims.com/86254-711
Tech Briefs Magazine - April 2024

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