Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
5-31-1988
Degree Name
Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering - (M.S.)
Department
Mechanical Engineering
First Advisor
Rajesh N. Dave
Second Advisor
Harry Herman
Third Advisor
Bernard Koplik
Abstract
The automatic generation of robot paths for a commercial water-jet cutting system by establishing a link with a commercial CAD system, in an attempt to achieve paper-less manufacturing and to minimize human interface is the objective of this thesis.
Water-jet cutting is an emerging technology with unlimited potential for a wide variety of manufacturing applications. Water-jet cutting systems integrated with robotic work cells allow the user to cut a variety of parts through part programs generated for robot controllers. The system employed is an Ingersoll-Rand water-jet cutting system, the movement of which is controlled by an Allen-Bradley 8200R programmable robot controller. The part programs are coded making use of the Off-line programming language (G-codes and M-codes) which is very similar to CNC codes. The use of a good CAD system for generating part programs increases productivity and eliminates tedious calculations.
AutoCAD, from Autodesk Inc. was chosen as the CAD system because of its popularity, ease of operation and applicability to microcomputers. Since most of the parts being cut by water-jets are planar, only 2D profiles were considered. AutoCAD facilitates the creation of a drawing interchange file (DXF file) which contains physical information about the designed part. The developed software extracts relevant data from the interchange file and orders the various entities (lines, polylines, arcs and circles) constituting the part so as to generate the correct shape of the part being cut. The software also allows the cutting of parts comprising of one or more nested profiles. Utilizing user-input information like programming mode, system of units and cutter elevation, the software codes this path in the form of the 8200R programming language. This can subsequently be downloaded onto the controller's memory through the RS-232 serial ports linking the microcomputer to the robot controller, thus achieving true Computer Integrated Manufacturing.
Recommended Citation
Vij, Samir, "Automatic generation of robot paths for waterjet cutting from autocad drawings" (1988). Theses. 3229.
https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/theses/3229
