Position and Torque Joint Control for Precision Drilling in Robotic Manufacturing Applications

Industrial robots are commonly used in various manufacturing processes within a cyber-physical system of industry 4.0 revolution. These tasks are involved with different loads and forces while interacting with the real environment. The effects of these forces can be studied by developing a dynamic model for the robotic manipulator. This research aims at solving the dynamic model of a 3-DOF planar articulated robot and finding the relation between the forces exerted by the robot and the joint torques in a drilling process. Finding the torque contribution of each joint to the output drilling force results in a variable joint torque control which allows the robot to perform manufacturing processes more efficiently. The design and analysis of a 3-DOF robotic manipulator with three revolute joints (RRR) configuration dedicated for micro-drilling is investigated in this research. Moreover, the closed loop control for the robot using Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) and Computed Torque Control (CTC) in Matlab/Simulink. The trajectory errors are evaluated for the two controllers to compare the performance.