Instrumentation of a grinding tool for capturing dynamic interactions with the workpiece

Challenging continuous contact type tasks which require position, as well as force control, are still carried out manually by skilled labor (such as finishing, deburring and grinding). As it's difficult to program experienced users skill for a robotic setup with out having a clear knowledge of underlying model used by the workers. We propose a novel method for instrumenting hand-held tools for capturing skilled operators function during tooling tasks. The information can be used in modeling a control algorithm for automating skilled tasks. The paper presents the hardware design of the instrumented tool including its calibration, followed by an experiment to validate tools ability to measure point of contact and applied forces accurately when the tool is fixed.