Intelligently automated polishing for high quality surface formation of sculptured die

An intelligent polishing system that improves the surface quality of sculptured die surfaces on a 5-axis polishing machine including a pneumatic polishing head is proposed. In general, a mechanically automated polishing system has the critical drawback of not being able to adjust polishing conditions as adequately as an experienced operator can. One of the main reasons is that the system does not have sensors equal to human fingers that can adapt to the changing conditions of the polished surface. In the proposed system, acoustic emission (AE) sensors are adopted to detect even a tiny change of the polishing status. Based on the on-site status information, polishing conditions such as pressure, feed rate and tool mesh are adjusted in process to achieve better surface quality as fast as possible using an AE-based intelligent monitoring scheme.