Increasing Robotic Machining Accuracy Using Offline Compensation Based on Joint-Motion Simulation

In this paper an approach for improving robot machining accuracy through simulation-assisted path planning within Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) tools is investigated. The method comprises modeling of dynamic robot behaviour under influence of process forces and a subsequent simulation of the robot motion which results in an offline prediction of deflection errors during the machining task. The error prediction performed inside the CAM-tool is utilised to already offline apply compensations to the planned tool-path for the robot. The whole computer-tool chain has been implemented and integrated within a commercial CAM-software. The focus of this paper is to describe the system architecture and do initial validation and analysis of the proposed method and experimental results.