Sensor technology allows robots to be precisely polished

Recently, Gartner, a global information technology research and analysis organization, summarized the top ten strategic technology trends in 2014 and proposed that “the era of intelligent machines will become the most subversive era in IT history”, saying that smart machines will accelerate consumerization. Xiao Y, a polishing robot with sensors, is a vivid example of the high intelligence of intelligent machines.

"Intelligent machines sound relatively distant, and they have been gradually applied around." Researcher Zhang Chi, academic leader of the Precision Sports and Advanced Robotics Technology Team of the Ningbo Institute of Materials Science, said that whether it is home products, manufacturing equipment or robotics, we will bring us Into an increasingly intelligent era.

Xiao Y slowly walks to the metal workpiece, and obtains the three-dimensional cloud point information of the shape and displacement of the object through machine vision , and transmits it to the control system; after that, through the pressure sensor feedback, the small Y controls the intensity according to the surface change to achieve precise polishing.

Xiao Y is a polishing robot that exists in the robot team's vision. It represents the hotspot of international research, that is, how to collect and store the knowledge and experience of skilled technicians through various sensors, machine vision, etc., form an expert system to teach robots, let robots simulate human actions, and reach skilled workers. The effect of the operation.

"Highly intelligent robots involve multidisciplinary crossovers and are very difficult to implement." Zhang Chi said that this is a hot spot in international robotics research.

For a long time, the polishing process has been mostly done by manual processing, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and has poor product consistency. Therefore, the demand for automatic polishing equipment is growing.

And this demand exists in many industries and fields. For example, in the Philips factory in the Netherlands, electric razors are assembled using 128 mechanical arms.

Using "robots" to defeat "people" is one of the methods of the US "re-industrialization" strategy. In China, upgrading traditional industries with modern and automated equipment is also an objective requirement for promoting industrial upgrading. During the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, China's industrial robot industry market demand will grow at a rate of 15% to 20% per year. The International Robot Federation expects China to become the world's largest robot market by 2014.

In this context, the robot team focuses on R&D. Recently, the force-controlled polishing robot led by researcher Xia Qinghua has made important progress, and the second-generation prototype has completed preliminary debugging. It can imitate the operation of the worker polishing the workpiece, and maintain the constant force contact between the polishing tool and the processed workpiece by controlling the contact force, effectively guaranteeing the polishing quality and realizing the automation of the workpiece polishing.

"The integration of new technologies such as industrial robots and vision and multi-source sensor information fusion technology is making it move toward a more intelligent direction." Zhang Chi said that the technology is also in the application research stage internationally, and small Y is the polishing robot. Future sample.