IMPROVING ACCURACY IN ROBOTIZED FIBER PLACEMENT

International audienceMaterial composites are increasingly used in the demanding field of aeronautics. To meet this growing need, Coriolis Composites has developed a solution of automated fiber placement named AFP. This system uses a manipulator arm composed of six axes. This fiber placement task requires a compacting strength adapted to the material used. The robot must keep in contact with the mold and control the compacting force. A manipulator arm is not made to work in force, so accuracy problems appear. Within this framework, the industrial project IMPALA was born in order to improve this new process. This paper shows the use of hybrid position-force control to handle the compacting strength in first time and to improve the fiber placement accuracy