Title: Machining robot for foamed polystyrene materials using fuzzy feed rate controller

Authors: Fusaomi Nagata; Akimasa Otsuka; Keigo Watanabe; Maki K. Habib

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo University of Science, Yamaguchi, Sanyo-Onoda 756-0884, Japan ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo University of Science, Yamaguchi, Sanyo-Onoda 756-0884, Japan ' Department of Intelligent Mechanical Systems, Division of Industrial Innovation Sciences, Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, 3-1-1 Tsushima-naka, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-8530, Japan ' Mechanical Engineering Department, School of Sciences and Engineering, American University in Cairo, Cairo 11511, Egypt

Abstract: Generally, cast metal is produced by using a sand mould. A foamed polystyrene mould is used as not only the master mould for making the corresponding sand mould but also the lost-foam pattern for full mould casting, i.e., lost-foam casting. Recently, the development of a flexible machining robot for foamed polystyrene materials is expected in the cast metal industries because of the high cost and inefficiency of conventional large sized CNC machine tools. In this paper, a machining robot based on an industrial robot is developed for foamed polystyrene materials by applying the already developed robotic CAM system. A compact and lightweight high performance tool is also considered and attached to the arm tip. The feed rate of an end mill is skilfully regulated by a fuzzy reasoning method. The design of the machining robot using the robotic CAM system and fuzzy feed rate controller is presented to efficiently produce foamed polystyrene moulds.

Keywords: machining robots; industrial robots; open architecture controller; CADCAM; CL data; NC data; robotic CAM systems; foamed polystyrene moulds; fuzzy reasoning; feed rate control; robot control; fuzzy control; controller design; cast metal industry; flexible robots; end milling; mouldmaking.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMA.2015.068452

International Journal of Mechatronics and Automation, 2015 Vol.5 No.1, pp.34 - 43

Received: 10 Jul 2014
Accepted: 18 Nov 2014
Published online: 03 Apr 2015 *

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