Automated metal spinning: visual tracking and force control methodologies.

摘要

The thesis presents the development of force controller to maintain desired normal forces during a very stiff contact operation conducted in a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine. Force controller approach described in this thesis requires the accurate knowledge of the nominal tool path a priori. Obtaining the nominal tool path accurately is carried out by a vision based profile tracking system presented in this thesis. Both the force control and visual profile tracking systems require the development of an active control system to respond to force and vision signals.To facilitate the active control, a two-stage approach has been taken. The first stage is to bring the CNC machine under real-time control of an external computer. The second stage is the design of the active axis controller. This is achieved by adding sensor feedback loops to the external axis controller.The purpose of the active vision based profile tracking system is to automatically generate the tool path accurately. Emphasis is on combining low resolution vision with visual control of the precision CNC machine to attain the accuracy required for metal spinning. Combination of visual profile tracking and an edge detection method that gives sub-pixel accuracy were used to obtain the required tool path. A curvature detection algorithm was developed to identify segments of the tool path by assuming that the tool path consists of circular and straight line segments.The developed active force controller operates in a dynamic setup and is used to maintain tool forces at desired levels. The complete control system operates in a manner similar to reaction compensation and the force controller can be viewed as an integrating on-off controller with minimum integral wind-up effect. As a result, a direct dependency of the control efforts on error signals has been eliminated. In addition, the force controller brings in artificial damping that ensures the stability of the control system. To demonstrate the effect of the force controller, spun component qualities were assessed.