Development of a force controlled finishing robot system and its applications

We have developed a force controlled robot system for finishing tasks such as grinding, chamfering, and polishing tasks in machining plants, having a concept of simple to use. System concept of simple to me is `Simple Operation', `Simple Programming', and `Simple Setup'. A casted or welded workpieces for finishing differ in their size or shape or both. Force controlled robot systems can handle them because they can follow the edges or the surfaces of the workpieces using force control function. Until now, however, force controlled robot systems have been difficult to use because many force control parameters have to be assigned and you should be very careful to teach the robot in contact with the workpiece. To make the robot simple to use, we have developed a task-directed robot language, force controlled guide function and application oriented force control functions. Some application systems are also reported.