Mechatronic Design of Two-Jaw Pleating End-Effector for Large-Scale Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer Manufacturing

Abstract

Large-scale composite manufacturing processes, particularly vacuum injection moulding, are often hampered by expensive labour costs and low-levels of automation. The current process of manufacturing carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRP) for airplane fuselage workpieces requires experienced workers to spend hours manually placing, pleating and migrating multiple layers of fabrics in order to produce the desired composite part. A promising solution is to utilize robot platforms as assistants to alleviate the physical demands of the tasks. In this paper, we present the design and evaluate the performance of our novel Vacuum Infusion Moulding End-Effector (VIMEE) prototype in the pleating procedure of a simulated CFRP manufacturing vacuum bagging process, where our gripper system performs pleat loading, height detection and migration tasks. Experimental results show successful manipulation of nylon pleats by our mechatronic systems design. These results are promising, demonstrating our VIMEE design's potential value in vacuum injection moulding.