An accurate approach to roller path generation for robotic fibre placement of free-form surface composites

• This work proposes an accurate roller path planning method for free-form surface structure using the differential geometry.
• The offset distance is calculated for offsetting each path, ensuring all the tows been placed on the mould completely.
• The roller locations are determined for each generated path, resulting in a smooth roller motion along the curved path.

Due to their high stiffness and strength, composites are widely used in the aerospace industry. To manufacture composites, especially composites of free-form surface structure, process of robotic fibre placement (RFP) is widely used in industry. However, due to the complex geometry of the free-form surface, it is quite challenging to generate accurate roller paths for placing fibre on the surface for high composites quality. To address this problem, this work proposes an accurate roller path planning method using the differential geometry. The roller paths can ensure the specified small gaps and overlaps between two tows for high composite quality. This approach is applied to several examples, and their results verify the validity of this approach. It has great potential to be adopted in industry.