Enhancement of an Optical Cut-Piece Detection System for Pick and Place Use Cases

Abstract

The usage of fibre reinforced parts (FRP) in aerospace industry is state of the art due to their high mechanical properties and low weight. Due to the rising amount of possibilities on how to use and manufacture FRPs other fields like automotive and maritime are increasing the usage. Dependent on the parts size and geometrical complexity the manufacturing processes range from solely manual to highly automated. For example, fibre placement with mechanically guided tape laying machines is used to manufacture large component preforms fully automated. Fibre placement for thermoset parts is using prepreg tapes that get cured in the autoclave or thermoplastic tapes with in-situ consolidation which lead to fully cured parts after deposition. On the other hand preforming with patches of unidirectional, non crimp fabrics or weaves is done mainly by hand. However, for smaller companies the investment to automate these manufacturing processes inherits high risks. A solution to this problem is the combination of robotically guided patches that are draped manually by skilled workers, which is developed in the European Unions founded project DrapeBot. With the help of the robot and low cost end-effectors, highly flexible manufacturing scenarios with low investment can be achieved. A crucial step in this process is the material logistics to ensure correct material handling and also high quality of the part. In previous researches a camera based system to detect dry carbon fibre as well as thermoplastic patches was developed. In this work the existing system was further developed to fulfil the needs for a co-operating patch preforming system in the project DrapeBot. Three use-cases from aerospace, automotive and maritime are presented describing the different requirements for the preforming processes and how the system had to be adjusted to fulfil them.