Design of Passive Constant‑Force End‑Effector for Robotic Polishing of Optical Reflective Mirrors

摘要

Polishing plays an indispensable role in optical processing,especially for large-aperture optical reflective mirrors with freeform surfaces.Robotic polishing requires effective control of the contact force between the robot and the mirror during processing.In order to maintain a constant contact force during polishing,traditional polishing robots rely on closed-loop control of air cylinders,whose performances heavily rely on high-fidelity force sensing and real-time control.This paper proposes to employ a compliant constant-force mechanism in the end-effector of a polishing robot to passively maintain a constant force between the robot and the mirror,thus eliminating the requirement for force sensing and closed-loop control.The compliant constant force mechanism utilizing the second bending mode of fixed-guided compliant beams is adopted and elaborated for the passive end-effector.An end-effector providing a constant contact force of 40 N is designed and prototyped.The polishing experiment shows that the passive constant-force end-effector provides stable contact force between the robot and the mirror with fluctuation within 3.43 N,and achieves RMS(Root Mean Square)lower thanλ/10(λ=632.8 nm)of the polished surface of the largeaperture optical reflective mirror.It is concluded that the constant-force compliant mechanism provides a low-cost and reliable solution for force control in robotic polishing.