Sensor supported milling of window openings in railway manufacturing

In the field of railway industry, more and more producers use extruded aluminium profiles as basic elements for the manufacturing of wagon crates. A mayor advantage compared to traditional manufacturing methods is the good potential for automated workcells and thus reduced production costs, even considering the small batches found in this area. Due to the deviations between the optimal CAD-workpiece on which the programming of the robot is based and the real profile, it is necessary to correct the path of the robot. The paper presents a new solution of integrating a sensor into an existing production process for milling window openings. For the milling of these openings the optimal movement of the robot describes a plane rectangle. Aspects which are discussed in this paper include the general approach which has been followed to develop the sensor system, the mathematical procedures for calculating the optimal path and finally the interfacing between the sensor system and the robot.