Customised Mass-Production through Autonomous Manufacturing

Polishing of precision surfaces such as lenses and mirrors requires a rubbing action, rather than 'cutting' as with

a grinding machine or lathe. Such lens or mirror surfaces, and particularly complex surfaces, are required for a

huge range of modern products, ranging from digital and phone cameras, to LED lighting, to advanced defence

and space systems. Modern computer controlled polishing machines move a polishing tool over the surface of

the component, and the path is programmed to remove just the right amount of material at each place to

correct height-errors measured in the surface. This assumes that the action of the polishing tool is truly

predictable. In reality, the predicatability falls well short of the ideal, and this means that several (or indeed

many) cycles of polish => measure => polish are required to meet the requirements. This project proposes to

measure some key effects before and during the polishing process ,and also characterise the tooling itself, in

order to improve overall predicability. This promises significant reductions in polishing time and so cost.