Sustainable Grinding with Agile Robotics

The project develops a generic system concept and specific set of building blocks for flexible and intelligent robotic grinding processes. For verifying and validating the concept and building blocks, the project creates conceptual solution demonstrators for different representative industrial cases. Moreover, the demonstrators strengthen the dissemination and enable the exploitation of developed solutions. High flexibility, adaptivity and intelligence are characteristic for the solutions. The SUGAR project main objective is creation of a concept for designing and implementing automated grinding solutions, which are: (i) Affordable also to SME's, (ii) Constructed from commercially available enabling technology hardware blocks, (iii) Optimised for the end user needs with adaptable analysis, programming, control and simulation software package(s), and (iv) Allowing also high degree of flexibility and re-configurability in the cell. Parallel to cost-effectiveness and high productivity, the sustainability aspects of the grinding process are addressed through the whole project, covering not only environmental topics, such as carbon foot- and handprint, waste reduction, reuse and recycling, but also occupational health and safety issues for better work environment and well-being. Thus, project covers all three sustainability pillars: ecologic, economic and social sustainability that are being evaluated during the course of project.

Coordinator: Mika Sirén