Making Robots More Multifunctional

Among robotics system developers and programmers, a new trend is emerging: High-volume finishing of engineered parts, including castings, with installations conceived for grinding or deburring, and lately for more value-added machining processes, such as milling, drilling, or thread-cutting. Robots are no longer systems for simple grinding or deburring tools. A German developer, Kadia Produktion GmbH + Co., is a long-time designer of workcells for high-volume part deburring based on six-axis industrial robots. The company’s Deburr robot cells adopt two program concepts: Either the robot grips the workpiece and moves it to fixed tools — often brushes — or it guides the tools itself, such as milling tools. The latter case presents a greater challenge, for example in deburring of large gears. Calling this process deburring is no longer quite accurate, according to Kadia developers: It is clearer to characterize it as “edge shaping”. With the robot fixed to hold a solid-carbide end mill, the gears are given chamfers of up to 5 mm. More complex programming is needed for this operation because the cutters follow the involute contour of the tooth flanks.