At present, the 500 kV high-voltage cable insulation layer in the industry is grinded by sand belt or sand belt grinder, the grind of the high-voltage cable insulation layer depends entirely on the feeling or experience of the operators, which results in the poor roundness and quality consistency of the grinded high-voltage cable insulation layer, the risk of breakdown of high-voltage cable is very easy to occur, which seriously threatens the safe and stable operation of high-voltage cable. On the other hand, a great deal of dust will be produced in the course of grind of high-voltage cable insulation layer, which will lead to bad working environment on site and indirectly affect the grinding quality. Therefore, in this paper, the robot and force-controlled grinding system are used to study the residual controllable grinding process for the high-voltage cable insulation layer, it is of great significance to improve the grinding quality of high-voltage cable insulation layer, improve the working environment and advance the intelligentized level of the grind of high-voltage cable insulation layer.