Research On Robotic Fibre Placement An Its Key Technology

Fiber reinforced composites have become major structural materials where attractive strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios, ablative resistance, corrosion resistance are the significant advantages. China has been launched the aircraft project which need lots of fiber composite material, so the high-performance manufacture of composite parts of aircrafts is an urgent problem. Fiber placement technology is a key method of producing composite structures, which is also the fastest growing and most efficient composites manufacturing technology.Robotic fibre placement which uses a fibre processing-head conjunction with a robot manipulator to fabricate composite using pre-impregnated fibre tows offers many important features and advantages that are not achieved with traditional fabrication techniques. Furthermore, the use of a robot manipulator increases the flexibility of the fibre placement process and allows for the fabrication of more complex structures. The research of thesis is focused on structure design of robotic fiber placement system, composition and structure of robotic fiber placement system, the path planning and so on.In order to improve the production capacity of the equipment, especially realize complex surface tubular parts producing, the seven degrees of freedom robotic fiber placement system has been designed. It consists of three major parts:the six degrees of freedom robot, spindle and creel cabinet. The robot has the fiber placement head, which is mounted on the end of the wrist and can achieve independent control of tows clamp, restart and cut. Spindle as an additional degree can processing the complex surface tubular parts. The creel cabinet has the function of tension control, which can control the tension accurately.This paper studied open architecture system of fiber placement machine, which include motion control, tow control and tension control. Motion control using IPC and PMAC card is open architecture. Which control8axis, include six axis of the robot, one axis of spindle and one axis of restart motor. Tow control use the PLC control the electromagnetic valve, which is in the PMAC, using the optical isolation circuit. Tension controls use the PLC as the main controller, the AC servo motor as the actuator.Two different types of fibre placement for open surfaces are discussed, which include simulation-based fibre path generation, and sensory-based contour following methodologies. The former choose the markers which is found on the simulation and modeling of CAD, the later change the location of the pressure roller, which is found on the feedback of sensor.This paper design the robotic fibre placement system though the research on the key technology of robotic fibre placement above. I believe this will make big impact such as increase the manufacturing level of fiber reinforced composites and promote the development of aerospace and military.