Affordable and artistic stone processing

A study has helped the European stone industry to lower their production costs. This is possible by using an industrial robot as an active assistant for the complex and demanding artistic work of hard natural stone carving.

Industrial Technologies

European sculpturing and artistic stone processing is becoming an endangered art. This is a result of the evolving high priced technology for artistic stone processing needed to keep up with the new industrial requirements of productivity and manufacturing. With the worldwide growing demand for natural stone products, the stone industry is important at European level. An EU-funded project AROSU(opens in new window) (Artistic robotic surface processing for stone), found a solution to bridge the gap between market competitiveness and new industrial requirements. This was achieved with the implementation of a novel robot cell, able to produce artistic looking surfaces. It is capable of implementing core components. Results of the work include mechanical damping/decoupling tool, a path planning algorithm, software design framework, and a robot work cell. Finally production of the natural stone surface processing robot cell can integrate the aforementioned results into a finished product which can be sold to potential clients.