Statistical perception of chaotic fabrication error and self-adaptive processing decision in ultra-precision optical polishing

Experimental results indicated that the average prediction error in each convergence cycle was reduced to 6.14%. Without manual participation, the root mean square(RMS) of the surface figure of a ϕ100-mm flat mirror was converged to 1.788 nm with only robotic small-tool polishing, and that of a ϕ300-mm high-gradient ellipsoid mirror was converged to 0.008 λ.

Additionally, the polishing efficiency was increased by 30% compared with that of manual polishing. The proposed SCP model offers insights that will help achieve advancement in the subaperture polishing process.