Technical Paper
Robotic Drilling: A Review of Present Challenges
2024-03-05
2024-01-1921
In numerous industries such as aerospace and energy, components must perform under significant extreme environments. This imposes stringent requirements on the accuracy with which these components are manufactured and assembled. One such example is the positional tolerance of drilled holes for close clearance applications, as seen in the “EN3201:2008 Aerospace Series – Holes for metric fasteners” standard. In such applications, the drilled holes must be accurate to within ±0.1 mm. Traditionally, this required the use of Computerised Numerical Control (CNC) systems to achieve such tight tolerances. However, with the increasing popularity of robotic arms in machining applications, as well as their relatively lower cost compared to CNC systems, it becomes necessary to assess the ability of robotic arms to achieve such tolerances. This review paper discusses the sources of errors in robotic arm drilling and reviews the current techniques for improving its accuracy.