Kinematic based selection of the workpiece location in robotic milling

The use of industrial robots in milling applications exhibits several issues such as low accuracy, low structural rigidity and kinematic singularities etc. The inverse kinematic solution of the robot i.e. positions and motion of the axes, strictly depends on the workpiece location with respect to the robot base. Therefore, workpiece placement is crucial for improved robotic milling applications. In this paper, the effect of workpiece location in robotic milling is investigated considering the robot kinematics. The investigation criterion is selected as the movement of the robot axes. It is aimed to minimize the total movement of either all axes or selected the axis responsible of the most accuracy errors. Kinematic simulations are performed on a representative milling tool path and results are discussed.