Development of an automated robotic deburring workcell

This thesis deals with the development of an automated robotic deburring workcell for refurbished components with intricate geometry. Deburring of a refurbished workpiece involves establishing the location of the workpiece, establishing its geometry using surface digitizing and mathematical splining algorithms, extrapolating the reconstructed surface to get the edge profile, determining and executing the tool path. The robot chosen for the workcell is YAMAHA Zeta-1 robot designed specifically for deburring. A displacement sensor with an accuracy of 0.004 mm is interfaced to the workcell. The limited computational ability of the robot controller and its closed architecture have necessitated the development of an external controller to coordinate the activities of the workcell. The robot controller neither provides for communication with external computing systems, nor does it allow interfacing external sensors