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Development of an automatic mold polishing system

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DOI: 10.1109/ROBOT.2003.1242134 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING , VOL. 2, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2005
Short Papers_______________________________________________________________________________
Development of an Automatic Mold Polishing System
Ming J. Tsai, Jou-Lung Chang, and Jian-Feng Haung
Abstract—In this study, an automatic mold polishing system (AMPS) has
been successfully developed. The AMPS integrates with mold geometry
process kernel, path planner, process planner, and force control robot into
a system. The polishing path is generated and drawn on the three-dimen-
sional mold surface for verification. The AMPS can also automatic process
the task planning according to the polishing requirements of the mold. The
task list includes all the procedures and optimal polishing parameters. The
polishing tasks were then executed by a force controllable robot. The exper-
iment shows that the resultant of surface roughness satisfies the expectation
in the process planning.
Note to Practitioners —In the manufacturing of molds, the most time-con-
suming process is on the final stage the polishing process. The polishing
processes in the mold industry are almost conducted manually. The worker
needs exceptional skill that can only be trained by experienced master. For
mass production of molds, automatic polishing of the mold is a necessary.
From the long-term research effort, we have constructed an automatic mold
polishing system (AMPS). The AMPS includes a dedicated 5-axes robot to
execute the polishing task; a force control mechanism to hold the tool and
apply constant pressure on the mold surface; and a software system that
can read the geometry of the mold surface and automatically generate the
detail polishing process and the polishing path for the robot. The AMPS
now can handle polishing process for planar surfaces with obstacle inside
and surfaces of revolution. Research effort is now concentrated on dealing
with the free-from surfaces. Besides, reading the Initial Graphics Exchange
System (IGES) format from various computer-aided design systems is an-
other important issue for the system to be more useful. In all, the AMPS
is just begin to accumulate any further researches and developments that
may sustain various requirements of polishing applications.
Index Terms—Automatic mold polishing (AMP), polishing path plan-
ning, polishing process planning.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the current environment, the mold industry should response to the
human’s need more quickly. However, in the manufacturing of molds,
the most time consuming process is on the final stage—the polishing
process. According to Lee et al. [1] the polishing process of the mold
not only affects the final appearance and the quality of the mold, it also
occupies the total production time and cost up to 40%.
Almost all the polishing processes in the mold industry are con-
ducted manually. The dust and noise produced by the polishing process
are not good for human health. The monotonic nature of polishing
process even lends itself to be rejected by workers. Besides, the pol-
ishing process needs exceptional skill that can only be taught by expe-
rienced master. For mass production of molds, automatic polishing of
the mold is a necessary.
Manuscript received September 7, 2004; revised February 2, 2005. This paper
was recommended for publication by Associate Editor S. Gupta and Editor
P. Ferreira upon evaluation of the reviewers’ comments.This work was sup-
ported in part by the National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O.C., under Grant
NSC-85-2221-E006-028, Grant NSC-86-2212-E006-013, Grant NSC-87-2212-
E006-111, and Grant NSC-88-2212-E006-087.
The authors are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National
Cheng-Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan, R.O.C. (e-mail: mjtsai@
mail.ncku.edu.tw).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASE.2005.853723
1545-5955/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
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393
Fig. 1. Automatic polishing system.
The recent development of robotic technology shed light on the au-
tomation of polishing task [1], [2]. However, there are too many param-
eters to effectively control a polishing robot. The robot should follow a
designed path on the mold surface with appropriate contact force. The
automation of robotic polishing system then has three main strands.
One is to find the optimal polishing process and the parameters [3]–[5].
The other two are to teach the robot with a suitable polishing path
[6]–[10] and to control the robot to execute the path with desired con-
tact force [11]. Nevertheless, a robotic system that incorporates all three
functions is still in wanted by the mold industry.
In this paper, software engineering technique is used to analyze the
operation of polishing procedure to obtain the task specifications for
the system. The automatic mold polishing system (AMPS) integrates
geometry process kernel, path planner, process planner, and force con-
trol robot into a system. A dedicated 5-axes robot conducts the pol-
ishing tasks. Experiments show that the polishing results satisfy the
task requirements.
II. SYSTEM DESIGN
The configuration of the system is shown in Fig. 1. This system uses
Visual C++, MFC, and OpenGL graphic capability in PC window ar-
chitecture for easy access. According to experiments and communica-
tions with the mold polishing industry, the AMPS is designed to have
four modules. The modular design has the advantages of easy integra-
tion, maintenance, and modification. In this system, the mold surface is
needed to generate polishing path. The polishing task is executed by a
5-axes robot—ReapeR [12]. An independent force control mechanism
[13] is attached to the end of the robot.
III. ANALYSIS OF POLISHING PROCESS
The polishing process can be divided into four major steps: grinding,
lapping, polish lapping, and polishing. The first step is considered as
pre-process. ITRI [14] proposed a standard mold surface polishing
process in Table I. The polishing process planning in the AMPS is
primarily based on this procedure. Several principles should be noticed
during the arrangement of polishing process planning.
1) The polishing process should start with larger grain size and
gradually go down to smaller grain size.
2) The polishing path should distribute evenly on the surface. No
area should be over polished.
3) The polishing path should pass through a point in as many di-
rections as possible.
4) The polishing path should be free from collision with any object
or to make undercut on the fillet surface.
394 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING , VOL. 2, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2005
TABLE I
BASIC POLISHING PROCESS
Fig. 2. Fractal path planning. (a) Spherical surface 7-m grain. (b) Parabolic
surface 28-m grain.
5) The copper ring process requires very light contact pressure, typ-
ically lower than 30 kPa to avoid burning of the surface. The
mechanism of copper ring process is to cut off the peak of the
surface roughness by rolling the grains over the surface. The
copper ring process may apply many cycles on the surface.
6) The plastic ring process should apply heavier load (600–900
kPa) to press the surface evenly. We may need only one or two
cycles of this process.
7) The cloth ring process just makes the mold surface shiny without
affecting the final surface roughness.
A. Polishing Path Planner
The geometric kernel and the path planner of the AMPS are con-
structed by [15]. The geometric data can be input by three ways: file
reading, keyboard input, and robot teaching. The path planner considers
the surface curvature and the grain size to decide the kind and the den-
sity of polishing path. There are three kinds of polishing path built in
the AMPS. For planar surface, the cycloid path is used for greatest ef-
ficiency. For surfaces of revolution, fractal path is used, as shown in
Fig. 2. For free form surface, scan line path is used.
B. Polishing Process Planner
Process planner is the most important module of the AMPS. The
AMPS should be capable to produce a process list according to the re-
quirements of polishing task. Users simply input the target roughness
and the material of the mold. AMPS should be able to generate a list
of polishing procedure and output an “optimal” set of the controllable
factors, such as the polishing tool type, tool size, and grain size of each
step, etc. The polishing procedures are setup via finding the most ef-
ficient process at a specific surface roughness. A task list is generated
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to produce an “optimal” set of polishing parameters for each proce-
dure. The listed processes should be similar to the expert’s procedure,
and can be executed manually to get the same result as the automatic
process.
IV. AUTOMATIC PROCESS PLANNING
In order to build an automatic process planner, all the qualitative de-
scriptions should be digitized to numbers. We should have an exact and
clear measurement on the controllable polishing parameters. The final
appraisal is the surface roughness. The system uses the current surface
roughness and the goal roughness to search for the optimal polishing
curve at each grain size step.
A. Determination of Polishing Parameters
The determination of polishing process is based on the previous
studies that conducted by our laboratory from 1996 to 2004. The fac-
tors that affect the polishing results come from two sources. One is
the kinematic parameters such as the polishing travel speed, feed rate,
number of cycles, rpm of the tool, and tool-weaving frequency, etc. The
other is the mechanic setup of the polishing process, such as tool type,
grinder type, grain size, and polishing pressure, etc.
B. Polishing Process Scheduling
Scheduling the polishing process is quite problematic because it is
a skillful task that is conventionally done by experienced worker. The
most difficult process is to find when to switch from bigger grain size
to smaller one. Polishing with a specific grain size may reduce the sur-
face roughness to an extent. Further increasing the cycle of path does
not reduce the surface roughness. In a grain size step, the relationship
between the cycles of path and the surface roughness is called the R-n
curve.
The Taguchi method is used in primary experiments to find the ef-
fectiveness of each controllable polishing parameter. An optimal set of
polishing parameters for each grain size step can be formatted. Another
experiment is then conducted using this set of polishing parameters to
generate the R–n (Roughness versus N -cycles) curve for the grain size
step. The R–n curve is fitted as
a = ae + c
R
bn (1)
where n is the number of cycle executed, Ra is the surface roughness,
and is the function of n. Coefficients a, b, and c are to be fitted. Fig. 3
shows the R–n curves of eight typical polishing grain size steps.
C. Polishing Efficiency and Polishing Curves
The polishing efficiency is defined as: in a specific time and area, the
amount of surface roughness reduced:
P E = 0 11
A R
t
a (2)
where PE is the polishing efficiency, Ra is the average surface rough-
1
ness, A is the area polished, and t is the time required to polish. The
efficiency to number of cycle (E –n) can be computed as
= 0 11 a = 0
bn
= bn:
A R Aabe
P E t T
pe (3)
= ( ) (
Let p 0 Aab =T , A is the area polished mm2 , T is the total time )
required to a finish polish (seconds). Then, n is a function of PE . The
R –n and E –n curves of eight typical polishing settings are given in
Fig. 4.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING , VOL. 2, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2005 395

TABLE II
OPTIMAL SETS OF POLISHING PARAMETERS

TABLE III
R–n CURVE FITTING PARAMETERS
Fig. 3. R–n curves for eight typical grain size steps.

that made of SKD-61 material. Each curve represents a polishing step

using a set of “optimal” parameters. It may only apply to a limited range
of surface roughness. Some of the controllable polishing parameters are
given in Table II. And the R–n curve fitting parameters a, b, and c are
shown in Table III.

D. Automatic Process Planning

The polishing process should be changed while the surface rough-
Fig. 4. E –n curves for eight typical grain size steps. ness decreases. The change of process is based on the polishing effi-
ciency. The E –R curve is very useful to schedule the polishing process.
For a specific surface roughness, there may be several curves that can
bring the roughness down, but only the right most one has the highest
polishing efficiency. For automatic scheduling, we just look down from
a beginning surface roughness to find the right most curve. This is the
best process setting for the current step. The next step is obtained when
the roughness decreases to a certain level while another curve becomes
the right most one. We should change the polishing parameters to the
new curve and continue with this procedure until the desired surface
roughness is reached. Then, the whole polishing process is scheduled.
Automatic polishing process planning can be fulfilled by solving the
intersection of the curves or by searching the right most curves from
the starting to the ending surface roughness. For example, if the starting
surface roughness is 1.5 m, and the final goal is 0.15 m (Ra ), the
Fig. 5. E –R curves. process planning is shown in Fig. 6. In the figure, the dark black lines
indicate the processes to be followed to get the goal roughness.
The relationship between the polishing efficiency and the surface The problem left is how to decide the cycle needed for each pol-
roughness can be obtained as ishing step. The cycles of each step required to execute may be com-
puted using equation (2). We just subtract the ending number ne by the
Ra =
( 0T PE ) + c = qPE + c: (4)
starting cycle number ns of each step and then round it to the integer.
Ab The formula can be obtained as
Let q = 0T=(Ab), PE is function of Ra . The E –n curve is shown R 0c R 0c
n = n e 0 ns =
log a 0 log a (5)
in Fig. 5. The three family of polishing curves are obtained from a mold b b

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396 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING , VOL. 2, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2005

TABLE IV
STEPWISE POLISHING RESULTS

Fig. 6. E –R curve for scheduling.

Fig. 8. Result of concave mold automatic polishing.

Fig. 9. (a) Convex mold with fractal path mark in the middle of procedure.
Fig. 7. Polishing mechanism setup. (b) Result of convex mold polishing.

where R1 is the starting roughness for each step, and R2 is the ending Stepwise fulfillment :
roughness of that step.
= ( )
R2 0 predicting R2
rs actualpredicting 2 ( ) 100%
R1 0 R2 ( ) (7)

V. POLISHING EXPERIMENT Overall fulfillment :

= (
actual Rstarting 0 Rending
ra predicting ) 2 100%:
Experiments have been conducted on some test molds to verify the
system function. The mold has two kinds of surfaces, one is a plane and
(
Rstarting 0 Rending ) (8)

the other is a surface of revolution (parabolic). The material is SKD-61
with hardness HRC 45. The initial surface roughness is 0.457-m Ra .
The desired surface roughness is 0.040-m Ra . A robot executes the
polishing task with a force control mechanism, shown in Fig. 7.
According to the task list, the polishing processes are conducted step
by step. The stepwise polishing results are shown in Table IV. Three cri-
teria for the system evaluation is defined and calculated. They are the
polishing error ", the stepwise fulfillment rs , and the overall fulfill-
ment ra . The definitions are given as
Polishing error : of the AMPS to mold polishing industry are follows.
Since the final roughness is as low as 0.041 m (averaged), but the
resolution of the measuring instrument is 0.005 m, the polishing error
is not a suitable judgment. The stepwise fulfillment and the overall ful-
fillment show how accuracy the AMPS can achieve. Fig. 8 shows the
resultant mirror effect after automatic polishing. Fig. 9 shows another
result of automatic polishing.
VI. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
In this study, an AMPS has been established. The main contributions

" = (
actual R1 0 R2 ) 2 100% 1) Using the robotic system integration, the automation of pol-
(
predicting R1 0 R2 ) (6) ishing task is proven successful.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING , VOL. 2, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2005
2) With consideration of polishing efficiency, the sequence of pol-
ishing process can be automatic scheduled by the computers.
3) The geometry kernel can handle various mold geometries by
different input method and produce suitable polishing path.
4) The software also provides display windows for path verification
and polishing force monitor during the process execution.
5) Experiments show the fulfillment of polishing results can be
achieved as high as 99.76%.
Further study on the different mold materials to generate more pol-
ishing curves as database is needed to enhance the process planner. Be-
sides, free-form surfaces are popular in mold design. How to generate
a collision-free path on these surfaces will be an interesting research
topic.
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[12] M. J. Tsai, J. F. Haung, H. R. Huang, D. Y. Lin, and N. J. Ann, “An
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397
Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem:
A One-Stage Approach
Andrew Lim and Fan Wang
Abstract—This paper introduces multi-depot vehicle routing problem
with fixed distribution of vehicles (MDVRPFD) which is one important
and useful variant of the traditional multi-depot vehicle routing problem
(MDVRP) in the supply chain management and transportation studies.
After modeling the MDVRPFD as a binary programming problem, we
propose two solution methodologies: two-stage and one-stage approaches.
The two-stage approach decomposes the MDVRPFD into two independent
subproblems, assignment and routing, and solves them separately. In con-
trast, the one-stage approach integrates the assignment with the routing
where there are two kinds of routing methods—draft routing and detail
routing. Experimental results show that our new one-stage algorithm
outperforms the published methods.
Note to Practitioners—This work is based on several consultancy work
that we have done for transportation companies in Hong Kong. The multi-
depot vehicle routing problem (MDVRP) is one of the core optimization
problems in transportation, logistics, and supply chain management, which
minimizes the total travel distance (the major factor of total transporta-
tion cost) among a number of given depots. However, in real practice, the
MDVRP is not reliable because of the assumption that there have unlim-
ited number of vehicles available in each depot. In this paper, we propose
a new useful variant of the MDVRP, namely multi-depot vehicle routing
problem with fixed distribution of vehicles (MDVRPFD), to model the prac-
ticable cases in applications. Two-stage and one-stage solution algorithms
are also proposed. The industry participators can apply our new one-stage
algorithm to solve the MDVRPFD directly and efficiently. Moreover, our
one-stage solution framework allows users to smoothly add new specified
constraints or variants.
Index Terms—Vehicle routing, heuristic, transportation, supply chain
management.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the fast-developing logistics and supply chain management fields,
one of the key problems in the decision support system is that how
to arrange, for a lot of customers and suppliers, the supplier-to-cus-
tomer assignment and produce a detailed supply schedule under a set
of constraints. Solutions to the multi-depot vehicle routing problem
(MDVRP) help in solving this problem in case of transportation ap-
plications. Given the locations of depots and customers, the MDVRP
requires the assignment of customers to depots and the vehicle routing
for visiting these customers. Each vehicle originates from one depot,
serves the customers assigned to that depot, and returns to the same
depot. The objective of the MDVRP is to serve all customers while
minimizing the total travel distance under the constraint that the total
demands of served customers cannot exceed the capacity of the ve-
hicle for each route. There is an important assumption in the MDVRP
namely that unlimited number of vehicles are located in each depot.
However, in fact, it is obvious that this assumption is not reasonable
in most cases in the real business applications since no company has
unlimited number of vehicles. For instance, in the application of news-
paper delivery which was first introduced by Gillett and Johnson [1], it
Manuscript received November 11, 2004; revised March 7, 2005. This paper
was recommended for publication by Associate Editor C. Teo and Editor N.
Viswanadham upon evaluation of the reviewers’ comments.
The authors are with the Department of Industrial Engineering and Logis-
tics Management, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong
Kong (e-mail: fanwang@ust.hk).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASE.2005.853472