US 6,664,499 B1Granted

Tube and duct trim machine

AssigneeThe Boeing Company

InventorsSteve A. Brink, Noel A. Spishak, Daniel L. Nydegger, Stephen L. Sembritzky, William R. Schell, David M. Kozy, Steven R. Walton, Ray Henderson

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Abstract

An apparatus and method is provided for cutting curved tube and duct assemblies using a high-powered laser, which locates, measures and follows a scribe line. The invention generally is comprised of a multi-axis laser-based machine tool to cut formed (i.e., curved) welded tube and duct detailed parts to a planar scribe line. It is further comprised of a laser focusing head positioned on a rotating and tilting platform; fixturing aids to position and hold the tubes or ducts to be cut; a machine vision system to locate and measure a scribe line in a plane on the tube or duct, thus determining its orientation; and a controller that tilts the turntable to a co-planar position, and then operates a high-powered laser to cut the duct at the scribe line.

Claims55

Dependent claims

A tube and duct trim machine, comprising:

a safety enclosure and tooling structure;
a traveling overhead gantry supported on the top side of said safety enclosure and tooling structure;
said overhead gantry having a trolley and an overhead gantry arm movably supported by said trolley;
said overhead gantry arm having a movable gripper arm;
a vertical articulated arm movably supported on the back side wall of said safety enclosure and tooling structure;
said vertical articulated arm having a plurality of movable pined arm sections and a wrist section hinged on a ball and socket;
a plurality of grippers for rigid securement of tubes and ducts to said overhead gantry arm movable gripper arm and to said vertical articulated arm wrist section;
a rotatable turntable supported by a plurality of vertical actuators;
said turntable being controllably oriented in a vertical axis by means of said vertical actuators;
a duct centering/spatter tube device attached to the top center surface of said turntable;
a rough positioning alignment unit, comprised of a plurality of laser line generators, said rough positioning alignment unit being attached to the top surface of said turntable;
a laser cutting system, comprised of a controllable laser cutting head, a fiber optic beam cable and a laser power unit, said laser cutting system being attached to the top surface of said turntable;
a vision alignment system, comprised of a plurality of image acquisition modules located to the top surface of said turntable, and a vision processor module;
a tube and duct trim machine operator control panel;
a main cell controller;
a platform mounted controller;
whereby said tube and duct trim machine accurately positions and precisely cuts tubes and ducts at a pre-established planar scribe line.

14 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.