Design and control of an end-effector for industrial finishing applications

A strategy to improve industrial finishing applications using commercial robotic arms is presented in this paper. An end-effector is designed and prototyped as the mini manipulator, and is mounted at the end-point of a commercial robotic arm to form a macro-mini manipulator system. The developed end-effector has properties of fast response and high resolution in position control and force control. Position based force/impedance control algorithms of the end-effector are introduced, targeting on applications of polishing and deburring. Experiments are conducted by employing the integrated macro-mini manipulator system and the results are presented.