Abstract
This paper is concerned with an advanced control system of a sand molding robot in a casting industry. Sand molding machines have been mainly used in the foundries with mass production line. However, it is difficult to apply the conventional sand molding machines to foundries with cell production system which are required a high-mix low-volume production. Therefore, the sand molding robot system using a vertical articulated robot automating the sand molding process with the cell production system has been progressed more recently. In this robot system, the force control approach has been applied to the sand compaction process. However, the sand mold compacted by the robot was low strength and variation in the strength.
Therefore, we develop the sand compaction control system in the sand molding robot. The sand in the metal frame is molded by the robot equipped with thrusting and stamping tools. In this system, we propose the admittance control for compacting the sand with desired robot motion and force. The efficacy of the developed sand compaction control approach was verified by the experiments with the sand molding robot.
