This paper presents an in-depth study of the helical grinding brush force characteristics aiming at developing a mobile robot system to perform rust removal and other surface processing tasks. Based on an off-line Finite Element model that can calculate brush filament deformation and force behaviors, a mathematical regression model has been developed to summarize brush force changes subjected to varying conditions into a series of mathematical equations. The predictions of the mathematical

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... are well converged with the Finite Element modeled results and the R-squared value is up to 0.95. The paper presents the model form and calibrated coefficients, which may provide an advantageous tool to predict the grinding brush force changes in real time and contribute well to an automatic grinding control application.