A Toolchain for Automated Control and Simulation of Robot Teams in Carbon-Fiber-Reinforced Polymers Production

Abstract

This paper introduces, as a proof of concept, a tool chain for automated control and simulation of a robot team in the domain of production of carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers. The starting point is a CAD construction of a simple aviation component from which single cut pieces of carbon fiber, together withtheir properties, are extracted. Using this information and the layout of a given robot cell, various possibilities of assignments of cut pieces to grippers and robots or robot teams are determined. Subsequently, two approaches using an PDDL solver are introduced, with the goal of finding a scheduling for the lay-up process. Finally, the resulting process is simulated using a physics and rendering engine. The main purpose of this paper is to show the feasibility of such an approach; we do not concentrate on the optimization of single process steps and other details. Due to the modular structure of our approach, extensions and optimizations of the single blocks are easy to integrate. At the moment, digitization and automated control are little explored areas in the domain of production technology using pick and place processes in the aerospace industry. We think that our work will lead to further research in this direction.

Development of a Tool to Manipulate Flexible Pieces in the Industry: Hardware and Software

“…Another study [13] was conducted to optimize the execution of simultaneous tasks by multiple robots in a shared space. In [14] the authors showcase a system for automating and simulating robot tasks in producing carbon-fiber materials, highlighting its potential to enhance aerospace manufacturing. The research aimed to minimize total time and avoid collisions by using Markov Decision Processes (MDP).…”