On the development of a filament winding robotic system

Abstract

This paper reports on the design, manufacture, control and implementation of a robotic head for filament winding, typically carbon, glass etc. employed in shell-like part manufacturing with composite materials. The head is attached to a 6 axis industrial robot collaborating with a rotary axis on which a die is secured. Concept development and preliminary study of the head and its assembly on the robot were performed on a CAD system with motion analysis. Two alternative winding heads were studied and the one with embedded filament tension control was implemented. The winding path is planned by exploiting CAD-based kinematic simulation or analytical calculation. Control of the system was performed using the robot's inbuilt capabilities via programming in V+ language interfaced with a micro-processor controlling die rotation according to the open loop paradigm. Cylindrical and conical winding were successfully performed paving the way for expansion to non-symmetrical winding patterns.