Robotic Powder Grinding with a Soft Jig for Laboratory Automation in Material Science

Grinding materials into a fine powder is a time-consuming task in material science that is generally performed by hand, as current automated grinding machines might not be suitable for preparing small-sized samples. This study presents a robotic powder grinding system for laboratory automation in material science applications that observe the powder's state to improve the grinding outcome. We developed a soft jig consisting of off-the-shelf gel materials and 3D-printed parts, which can be used with any robot arm to perform powder grinding. The jig's physical softness allows for safe grinding without force sensing. In addition, we developed a visual feedback system that observes the powder distribution and decides where to grind and when to gather. The results showed that our system could grind 79 percent of the powder to a particle size smaller than 200 μm by using the soft jig and visual feedback. This ratio was 57% when using only the soft jig without feedback. Our system can be used immediately in laboratories to alleviate the workload of researchers.