A new and patented polishing tool (ZL2020102387137) called a Self-rotating Wheel Polishing Tool (SWPT) was built, and its tool influence function (TIF) was investigated in this study. The polishing wheel is an innovative two-layer structure: a rigid hub inside and a flexible polishing pad outside. By using finite element analysis, the dynamic contact characteristics between the polishing wheel and the workpiece were studied, and the theoretical TIF was modeled. Due to the influence of friction resistance, the TIF is not circular, but oval. We then ran material removal experiment, and it was found that the experimental TIF and the theoretical TIF are very close and both are close to the Gaussian shape. Finally, optical fabrication was performed. After four times of about 3 h fabrication, the form error converged from PV-1.434λ (λ = 632 nm), RMS-0.308λ to PV-0.144λ, RMS-0.009λ, and PV and RMS converged by 90% and 97%, respectively. The form accuracy achieved the expected target of RMS-0.02λ, which proves that the SWPT has the characteristics of high convergence rate and high fabrication accuracy. The SWPT has a broad application prospect in the field of high-precision optical fabrication.

An ABB IRB6640 industrial robot is used as a processing platform for optical polishing. The relationships of coordinate systems are defined, the algorithm of coordinate transformation, Euler angles and quaternion are provided. M-like removal function and Gaussian-like removal function are used to simulation process an off-axis aspheric surface. The surface error after polishing by M-like removal function is 1.5 to 2.5 times bigger than Gaussian-like removal function. This proves that M-like removal function also has good convergence speed. Then, the pentagram polishing head is used to polish a Φ600mm off-axis paraboloid surface. After 15 cycles, about 120 hours processing, PV converges from 5.8μm to 0.836μm, RMS converges from 1.2μm to 0.054μm, PV and RMS respectively converge 85% and 95%. The experiment shows M-like removal function has good convergence speed.