Polishing Path Planning of Complex Curved Surfaces and the Realization of Automatic Control

Polishing technology is a final surface finishing process. The main aim is the removal of the machining marks to make the surface bright and clean. Polishing is often difficult to realize automatic mechanical polishing due to the polishing quality requirements and workpiece shape. Aiming at the problem, an automatic polishing technology has been proposed. In the paper, a new polishing path determining a method has been proposed. With this path, the abrasive properties have been studied. Firstly, the abrasive has been selected according to the surface roughness experiment; then, the detailed parameters of processing have been researched. The experimental results show that there is a reasonable grain size meeting the roughness requirement of the workpiece surface with relatively larger abrasive grain size. Besides, it can also be concluded that the roughness of the workpiece surface and the path planning of the abrasive and the processing parameters have high relationship, and only the full consideration of all the parameters can help to improve the processing efficiency with the low cost.