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US 4,145,740 AGranted
Filament winding apparatus
AssigneeTri-N Associates, Inc.
InventorsWilliam G. McClean, Daniel C. Budge
Life of this patent
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AssigneeTri-N Associates, Inc.
InventorsWilliam G. McClean, Daniel C. Budge
Estimating the term…
A filament winding machine includes a servomotor connected to position a filament distributing carriage relative to a rotating mandrel to form a tubular member. An incremental encoder is connected to the mandrel and produces a pulse related output per mandrel revolution. An absolute encoder is connected to the servomotor and provides an absolute position number. The encoders are sampled at a fixed rate. A mathematical calculating circuit reads the incremental encoder and based on a predetermined movement design for the gear drive, the desired winding configuration and the like determines the proper position, which is compared to the absolute encoder reading to produce an error control signal to the servomotor. A preselected sequence of actual position numbers and the corresponding calculated position numbers are continuously updated in a temporary memory. The difference of succeeding pairs provides data for directly computing the rate at which the head is moving and a proper position and thus also the data for computing actual acceleration or deceleration of the head movement. A microprocessor has proper programs with appropriate user specified parameters to produce various winding configurations. The microprocessor provides the calculation of the proper position and determination of the drive signal. Suitable optional control tables such as a cosine table may modify the calculated carriage position to produce any desired motion. Rapid and continuous monitoring permits the system to anticipate necessary correction and thereby provide a continuous and low power level correction of heavy driven elements such as a filament winding head and carriage.
A filament winding apparatus having a rotating support mandrel and a filament positioning means movable relative to the mandrel from a reference position for controlling the positioning of a filament on the mandrel, comprising first encoder means for producing an output signal corresponding to the rotation of the mandrel, a second encoder means coupled to the filament positioning means for producing an output signal corresponding to the absolute positioning of the positioning means, a drive means for positioning the filament positioning means and including an input, and a microprocessor means including a programmable memory for storing at least one program describing the motion of the filament positioning means in terms of the rotation of the mandrel and utilizing the input data from the first and second encoder means to calculate the proper motion of the filament positioning means, and means to generate a signal to the drive means in accordance with the calculated position and the output of the absolute encoder.
A filament winding apparatus having a rotating support mandrel and a filament positioning means reciprocable along the mandrel from a reference position, comprising first encoder means for producing an output signal corresponding to the rotation of the mandrel, a second encoder means coupled to the filament positioning means for producing an output signal corresponding to the absolute positioning, a microprocessor having a calculating means generating a position related signal for each position sample and having an output, a drive means for positioning the filament positioning means and including an input coupled to said drive means, and said microprocessor including a means for sampling said first and second encoder means and inputting of said encoder means to said microprocessor and having memory means storing both data which describes the motion the positioning means is to make and a program which utilizes the stored data and the input data from the encoder means to calculate proper motion of the machine, said calculating means including means defining a particular position for each incremental sample, means comparing the calculated position number with the actual position sample number, said calculating means generating a drive signal based on the historical sequence of said samples to establish a controlled acceleration of the drive means.
A filament winding apparatus for producing a filament would object having a rotating support mandrel and a multiple filament head mounted on a track for reciprocable movement along the mandrel from a reference position, comprising a first digital encoder means for producing a train of output signal pulses corresponding to the rotation of the mandrel, a second digital encoder means coupled to the filament head for producing an output number identifying the absolute positioning from said reference position a drive means for positioning the head, and a microprocessor means including a calculating means and a memory having a pluraity of individual programs defining different mathematically defined motion of the filament head in accordance with the rotation of the mandrel for producing different winding configurations and each having unspecified variables permitting definition of a particular winding configuration including a head position for each incremental encoder sample and a velocity motion signal for each head position for each of said winding configurations said microprocessor having means to combine said programs into a particular sequence program defining a plurality of winding segments for the wound object, means responsive to said second digital encoder means to selectively execute said particular programs and utilizing the outputs of said encoders to calculate the proper position of the head and a drive signal based on the calculated proper position and the actual head position.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.