Instrumentation of a hand-held power tool for capturing dynamic interaction during finishing tasks

Implementing human like performance in industrial applications is a challenging task. This paper presents a concept to capture the relationship between a grinding tool and a workpiece for future robotic implementation. A grinding tool has been instrumented with force sensors to measure 3D forces and torques, and consequently the contact point and its features have been studied during a grinding task. The results show that the contact point between the tool and the workpiece can be precisely estimated and the results have been validated using 3D motion capture. The contact point and the contact ellipses have been traced on a workpiece. The results of this study are promising and the proposed algorithms and features of the tool can be implemented in a variety of applications. In the near future instrumented tools may be used by robots during industrial tasks in order to improve their performance and allow constant feedback based on the contact point and 3D forces.