Path Planning Algorithms For Spray Forming Conductive Pattern On Non-developable Surface

Conductive patterns are widely used in conformal load bearing antenna structure(CLAS),frequency selection surface radomes and other conformal structural functional devices.Those devices commonly need high-performances to meet the needs of military,medical and aerospace fields.So its fabrication precision affects the realization of specific electromagnetic performance.In the existing spray forming technology,the five-axis linkage technique was widely applied to the fabrication of conductive patterns on complex surfaces,especially on non-developable surfaces.Since the substrate did spatial compound motion in the inkjet process,there were some issues including undried ink flowing easily and the forming accuracy resulting from the curve interface step affect.In this thesis,the high-precision,high-efficiency spray forming methods were studied for non-developable surface conductive patterns.Firstly,the reduced dimension patch printing method was proposed,and a path planning algorithm was designed to converting the surface into two-dimensional plane printing.The algorithm simulations show that the subdomain division of Stereo Lithographic(STL)model mesh achieve reduced the printing unit by 64.82%,and by optimizing the traversal sequence of patches and the inkjet motion direction of each patch,minimize the vacant path during motion process and the stair error of patches.Secondly,the space conformal curve printing method was proposed,a path generation algorithm of Non Uniform Rational B-spline(NURBS)curve and its high precision discrete method was proposed to achieve high efficiency and continuous printing.Then,developed the non-developable surface conductive pattern printing path planning software systems to realize the conversion from three-dimensional model to motion instructions.The virtual printing results showed that the two methods were efficient and the algorithms were reasonable and correct.Finally,microstrip array antenna spray forming experiments were taken on spherical surfaces.The results showed that both methods can realize the fabrication of non-developable surface conductive patterns,and forming samplings meet the precision requirement.What's more,compared to the reduced dimension patch printing method,the space conformal curve printing method could reduce the time by 75% and improve the printing efficiency.