Rapid prediction of posture-dependent FRF of the tool tip in robotic milling

Abstract During the robotic milling process, vibration is one of the main factors that affect the machining accuracy and surface quality due to the low stiffness of the robot structure. The robotic milling stability is a function of the frequency response function (FRF) at the tool tip, which is posture-dependent within the workspace. This paper introduces an approach for rapidly predicting the tool tip FRF for industrial robotic milling at any posture. In this method, the models of the one degree-of-freedom (DOF) robot and two DOF robot are extended to a six DOF industrial robot to calculate the FRF at the holder tip based on the FRF acquisition tests at the arranged postures and a standardization process. Considering the coupling effects between the holder and the tool, the tool tip FRF at any posture of the milling robot is calculated using the receptance coupling substructure analysis (RCSA) method. Accordingly, the proposed method is applied to an industrial robot, and the feasibility of this method for predicting the posture-dependent FRF at high frequency in the workspace is validated though the impact tests. Moreover, the stability lobe diagram is calculated and the chatter tests are performed to validate its accuracy. At last, the robot structural modes are observed at the low-frequency dominant modes, whose frequencies are around 10 to 20 Hz.