Industrial Machining Robot with Incorporated Robotic CAM System

This chapter first describes the robotic CAM system proposed from the viewpoint of robotic servo controller for an industrial robot RV1A. Then, a reverse post-processor is proposed for the robotic CAM system to online generate the original CL data from the NC data post-processed for a five-axis NC machine tool with a tilting head. Next, an application of the industrial robot with incorporated the robotic CAM system is introduced. The application is developed to efficiently machine foamed polystyrene patterns which are typically used for master pattern of sand mold or for lost-foam pattern for full mold casting (i.e., lost-foam casting). If the target material is limited to such foamed polystyrenes, it is expected that the developed machining robot is superior to conventional NC machine tools in terms of introduction cost, running cost, compactness, and easiness of use. Finally, promising machining results of foamed polystyrene materials are shown.