Simulation for a Sound Analysis of Robot Part Program in Filament Winding Process

The high costs related to the production of composite products force firms to a better utilization of the plants. Different actions can be taken in order to decrease the use of human resources and to automate the entire process. The paper proposes a new policy for the generation of the part program in robotic filament winding process in order to deal with non-simple shape products. The proposed approach exploits new opportunities in manufacturing technology related to the use of simulation to evaluate in formal terms the quality of a given part program. The potentiality of simulation in the robotic field is well known. In particular, in this paper, simulation is used both to reproduce the whole process behavior and to provide a comprehensive view of the process parameters. The proposed method has been used for selecting the best position of the piece in the manipulator workspace, taking into account the limited kinematic skills of a robot.