Use of machine learning models in condition monitoring of abrasive belt in robotic arm grinding process

Although the aspects that affect the performance and the deterioration of abrasive belt grinding are known, wear prediction of abrasive belts in the robotic arm grinding process is still challenging. Massive wear of coarse grains on the belt surface has a serious impact on the integrity of the tool and it reduces the surface quality of the finished products. Conventional wear status monitoring strategies that use special tools result in the cessation of the manufacturing production process which sometimes takes a long time and is highly dependent on human capabilities. The erratic wear behavior of abrasive belts demands machining processes in the manufacturing industry to be equipped with intelligent decision-making methods. In this study, to maintain a uniform tool movement, an abrasive belt grinding is installed at the end-effector of a robotic arm to grind the surface of a mild steel workpiece. Simultaneously, accelerometers and force sensors are integrated into the system to record its vibration and forces in real-time. The vibration signal responses from the workpiece and the tool reflect the wear level of the grinding belt to monitor the tool’s condition. Intelligent monitoring of abrasive belt grinding conditions using several machine learning algorithms that include K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), and Decision Tree (DT) are investigated. The machine learning models with the optimized hyperparameters that produce the highest average test accuracy were found using the DT, Random Forest (RF), and XGBoost. Meanwhile, the lowest latency was obtained by DT and RF. A decision-tree-based classifier could be a promising model to tackle the problem of abrasive belt grinding prediction. The application of various algorithms will be a major focus of our research team in future research activities, investigating how we apply the selected methods in real-world industrial environments.