Report of robotic machining measurements using a Stäubli TX200 robot: application to milling

One of the most promising manufacturing technologies nowadays is certainly the material removal using an industrial robot. Robotic machining is a fast growing technology as the number of robots used in industry is increasing continuously.
Robots are indeed flexible which allows them to deal with large workpieces. On the other hand, their low stiffness restricts their use to machining operations accommodating a low accuracy or involving limited cutting forces as milling instabilities are more likely to occur. Since the impact of the machining process on the robot structure is not fully understood at this time, this paper aims to provide an in-depth analysis of experimental data obtained while machining an aluminium plate with a St¨aubli robot arm. After describing the experimental set-up, three different analyses (metrological, vibration, cutting forces) were carried out on the basis of the machined workpiece and the measured signals. An identification of the cutting coefficients was eventually performed in order to fit a cutting force model to the measurements. Simulation results showed a good correlation with the experimental measurements.