AUTOMATING THE FEEDING OF A COORDINATE MEASURING MACHINE

Abstract: The main objective of this paper is to solve a problem within a company regarding the optimization of a measurement process of a work-piece on coordinate measuring machines. This has been tried by automating the machine's feeding process, as well as by designing and constructing a part clamping device on the machine, in order to eliminate the measurement errors encountered and to shorten the fixing time of the part. By connecting the gripper to a robot, the human error was eliminated, which was one of the main problems and the whole measurement process was simplified. To achieve the following, the proper gripper needs to be chosen through calculating the gripping force, together with dimensioning the gripper’s jaws and designing the clamping device for the work-piece. Key words: Coordinate measuring machine, gripper, process automation, clamping device.