Configuration optimization through redundancy angle and tool posture by force induced error index in robot ball-end milling

Abstract Industrial robots are widely applied in manufacture industry recently because of their great flexibility and large working space. Due to the posture-dependent stiffness of industrial robots, a force-induced error index (FEI), which simultaneously takes milling force and robot tool end stiffness in consideration, is proposed to describe the error degree with different redundant angle and tool posture. Based on the FEI, a robot ball-end milling configuration optimization model considering the limits of FEI, movement smoothness and configuration singularity is proposed, and the shortest path searching algorithm is applied to generate robot trajectory. Corresponding experiments were carried out, and experimental results validated the effectiveness of the proposed FEI and the robot trajectory optimization method.