Modeling and simulation of the robotic layup of fibrous preforms for liquid composite molding

In recent years, the concepts of industry 4.0 are widely spreading in many different sectors, from agriculture to home automation, from transportation systems to manufacturing processes. One of the pillars of this concept is related to the use of robotic cells. The focus of the present work is the robotic automated layup of dry fibrous preforms to be employed in liquid composite molding (LCM) processes. In particular, the article describes a software tool developed to simulate the automated placement and layup of fiber fabrics and tissues on complex shape molds by means of a robotic system. The tool has been coded in Matlab language. An end-effector has been appositely designed for the fiber layup and it has been included in the model. The simulation provides as output the path generation and the configuration of the robotic arm and of end effector along the entire layup process. The implemented code has been compared with the commercial software RoboDK.