de Almeida Sergio Tadeu, Mo John P T, Bil Cees, Ding Songlin, Cheng Chi-Tsun
School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, East Campus, Melbourne, VIC 3083, Australia.
Micromachines (Basel). 2025 Jul 31;16(8):892. doi: 10.3390/mi16080892.
The increasing utilization of hard-to-cut materials in high-performance sectors such as aerospace and defense has pushed manufacturing systems to be flexible in processing large workpieces with a wide range of materials while also delivering high precision. Recent studies have highlighted the potential of integrating industrial robots (IRs) with electric discharge machining (EDM) to create a non-contact, low-force manufacturing platform, particularly suited for the accurate machining of hard-to-cut materials into complex and large-scale monolithic components. In response to this potential, a novel robotic EDM system has been developed. However, the manual programming and control of such a convoluted system present a significant challenge, often leading to inefficiencies and increased error rates, creating a scenario where the EDM process becomes unfeasible. To enhance the industrial applicability of this robotic EDM technology, this study focuses on a novel methodology to develop and validate a digital twin (DT) of the physical robotic EDM system. The digital twin functions as a virtual experimental environment for tool motion, effectively addressing the challenges posed by collisions and kinematic singularities inherent in the physical system, yet with proven 20-micron EDM gap accuracy. Furthermore, it facilitates a CNC-like, user-friendly offline programming framework for robotic EDM cutting path generation.
在航空航天和国防等高精尖领域，难切削材料的使用日益增加，这促使制造系统在加工各种材料的大型工件时要具备灵活性，同时还要保证高精度。最近的研究强调了将工业机器人（IR）与电火花加工（EDM）相结合的潜力，以创建一个非接触、低力的制造平台，特别适合将难切削材料精确加工成复杂的大型整体部件。针对这一潜力，开发了一种新型的机器人电火花加工系统。然而，对如此复杂的系统进行手动编程和控制面临重大挑战，常常导致效率低下和错误率增加，从而使电火花加工过程变得不可行。为了提高这种机器人电火花加工技术的工业适用性，本研究着重于一种新颖的方法，用于开发和验证物理机器人电火花加工系统的数字孪生（DT）。数字孪生作为刀具运动的虚拟实验环境，有效解决了物理系统中固有的碰撞和运动学奇异性带来的挑战，同时电火花加工间隙精度已被证明可达20微米。此外，它还为机器人电火花加工切割路径生成提供了类似数控的、用户友好的离线编程框架。
