Tunable Vibration Absorber Design for a High-Precision Cartesian Robot

In metal sheet processing for automotive application, it is crucial to guarantee high robot dynamics for reduced cycle times and adequate components accuracy to be competitive in the market. Since the two aspects are closely and inversely related, the problem becomes challenging. After the first cutting tests, the Cartesian Robot prototype displayed insufficient dimensional accuracy when undergoing high accelerations. The solution hereby proposed is the design of a Tuned Mass Damper (TMD), working in shear mode, to reduce the robot vibration amplitude. To this end, an initial assessment of the robot frequency response and natural frequencies was performed both by using a Finite Element (FE) model of the machine and experimentally. Further, frequency response analyses were carried out to evaluate the TMD effectiveness and to highlight possible criticalities from the manufacturing point of view. On a numerical level, the proposed design can damp the machine resonant frequencies, also showing a certain grade of tunability before operation and in-plane orientation insensitiveness thanks to the use of cylindrically shaped springs.