At present, in the thermosetting plastics industry, there are mainly two production methods: thermosetting pressing molding and thermosetting injection molding. Hot-pressing molding equipment has high requirements for personnel, high working intensity and a harsh working environment, which easily leads to personnel loss and low productivity. However, compared with the molding equipment of thermosetting pressing, the injection molding equipment has obvious advantages in product quality, with higher output at the same time, the lower working intensity of technicians and improved working environment. Thermosetting injection molding instead of thermosetting pressing molding has become the inevitable trend of plastic products industry reform. Although thermosetting injection molding has certain advantages over thermosetting molding. However, due to the limitation of equipment, it is difficult for large-scale products to fetch materials manually, and it is the general trend for machines to replace people. This project applies the technology integrated with the optical, mechanical and electrical methods, as well as modern design technology, machine vision technology and communication technology to realize automatic material taking of injection molding machines, internal flash detection and removal of mold, aiming at providing automatic detection and production solutions for thermosetting injection molding industry. It accomplishes all kinds of expected tasks by programming, realizing production automation, and reducing personnel requirements and labor costs. Through machine vision, the injection mold can be inspected; the flash can be removed, and the production quality can be ensured. It has the advantages of both human and machine in structure and performance, which embodies human intelligence and adaptability. The accuracy and efficiency of its operation and the ability to complete the operation in various harsh environments better realize the organic combination with mechanization and automation, and avoid the serious impact of high production intensity and poor processing environment on production personnel.
2. Development status and trends at home and abroad
At present, there are very few dedicated manipulators used in the thermosetting injection molding industry in China. The function of the injection manipulator existing in the market is extremely single. Most of them are to quickly take the product out of the mold and transfer the product to the next process, lacking the detection of the thermosetting injection mold itself. The mold with high value in each production cycle may be in danger of being damaged due to product residue or slider dislocation. Enterprises engaged in the production of thermosetting injection molding products mainly rely on manual picking because their own production scale, capital and manipulators can't meet the production demand, which directly leads to the low level of mechanization and automation. Moreover, for large-scale mold products, manual picking can do nothing at all. In foreign countries, the robot technology applied in the injection molding industry started earlier. With the development of the industrial robot, the application technology of injection manipulators has been promoted, and the robot dedicated for thermosetting injection molding has appeared, which has realized fully automatic injection molding production.
3. Industrialization of the project
With the sustained growth of China's economy, under the strong impetus of "Made in China 2025", China's manufacturing industry will face new challenges and opportunities. With the vigorous development of the manufacturing industry, many traditional machines that rely on manual operation have been abandoned and gradually replaced by automatic operation. In recent years, due to the increasing demand for injection molding products in automobiles, construction, household appliances and other industries, the development and improvement of thermosetting technology have been greatly promoted, and higher requirements have been put forward for the production capacity and energy saving of manufacturing factories.
Content, method and technical route of project development
The main content of the research
1. Overall scheme design of thermosetting injection manipulators based on machine vision
The overall scheme design of thermosetting injection manipulator based on machine vision is mainly to develop a thermosetting injection manipulator integrating machine vision and servo motion control, which can overcome the problems of poor universality and applicability, improving the reliability of the manipulator, and realizing the functions of intelligently identifying and positioning products, grabbing, removing flash and automatically detecting abnormal conditions inside the mold.
2. Structure design of thermosetting injection molding manipulators
In this article, the components, functions of each component and the realization method of the manipulator used in thermosetting injection molding are studied. Based on the principle of mechanical structure design, relevant mechanical structures are designed to realize the functions of automatic material taking, flash detection and flash removal of thermosetting injection molding manipulators.
3. Development of manipulators control system
Through the study of the manipulator trajectory, combined with the machine vision system and AC servo system, various interpolation techniques are used to design the trajectory, simplifying the programming method, improving the adaptability of the manipulator, and ensuring the stability, high speed and easy operation of the manipulator.
4. Development of a visual inspection system
Develop a vision inspection system to realize non-contact inspection. Through the application of algorithms such as noise suppression, background subtraction, image segmentation, dynamic threshold, feature extraction, etc., the imaging accuracy, detection accuracy and sensitivity of the system are improved. By applying the technology of combining near-infrared light with an industrial camera, the potential problem of light and shade around the factory is solved, which meets the requirements of high-precision and high-accuracy detection of flash inside the mold, and realizes the intelligent planning of the execution end trajectory.
5. The end actuator of modular
The modular actuator at the end of the manipulator is designed. By integrating the functions of grasping, sucking, detecting and blowing, the thermosetting injection molding manipulator can adapt to different operation requirements, such as load, material taking mode, flash removal, working range.
Key technologies to be solved
1. By studying the practical application of injection molding equipment and adopting mechanical structure technology, a thermosetting injection molding manipulator integrating machine vision and servo motion control is developed, which is suitable for positioning, grabbing and flash removal of injection molding products, ensuring the stability, high speed and easy operation of the manipulator, and has high-cost performance.
2. By studying the identification and detection technology of the target, combining with near-infrared light and other related technologies, develop a vision detection system to improve the detection accuracy and reliability.
3. Through the combination of the servo control system and machine vision, the intelligent calculation is carried out on the trajectory of the manipulator's execution end, so as to realize the high-speed, stable and reliable operation of the manipulator.
4. According to the different application scopes and different operation requirements of injection molding equipment, modular design of the end actuator is carried out to meet the diversified operation requirements of the injection molding industry.
The proposed method, technical route and technological process
1. Investigate the injection molding production process requirements, quality requirements, management requirements, operation and working process of injection molding equipment and market demand, and collect relevant information.
2. Analyze and study the blanking modes, mold identification requirements and movement requirements of various injection molding equipment, and use modular design technology and coordinated operation technology to complete the module analysis of thermosetting injection molding manipulators.
3. The mechanical control technology is used to design the structure of the manipulator's actuator and joints. The overall scheme design of the thermosetting injection manipulator is completed by modeling, analysis and simulation technology.
4. According to the design principle and working principle of the mechanical structure, complete the design of the control system.
5. Through a series of algorithms, such as the positioning technology of geometric features and image comparison, combined with the internal features of the mold, the machine vision is designed and developed.
6. The manufacturing and testing of the system prototype
7. Marketing and technology promotion
Actively explore the domestic market. Promote and apply thermosetting injection manipulators based on machine vision to related industries.
Features and innovation breakthroughs of the project
1. Through the development of a machine vision inspection system, a non-contact inspection can be realized, the abnormal situation on the mold can be identified in time, the production quality can be improved, and mold protection can be realized.
2. Through the combination of machine vision and servo control system, intelligently calculate the running track of the execution end and realize it through the mechanical structure.
3. Through the modular design of the end actuator, integrating the functions of detection, material taking and flash removal, the manipulator can extract materials under changeable working conditions.
Expected technical, economic indicators and social benefits of the project
Technical indicators
1. It has the functions of automatic fetching of thermosetting plastic products, automatic trimming inside the mold, image acquisition and automatic blanking of products.
2. The success rate of automatic fetching is ≥ 99%.
3. The success rate of abnormal detection in the mold is ≥98%.
Social benefits
The application of thermosetting injection manipulator based on machine vision provides an effective solution for injection molding enterprises to move towards intelligent injection molding production with machine substitution, effectively solving the problems of low product quality, low production intensity, poor processing environment, high labor cost and low technical level of workers in the injection molding industry. Improve the ability of enterprises to supervise and control the whole production process, and improve the production efficiency of enterprises. Protect production equipment and molds. Reduce production costs. Improve product quality and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises in domestic and international markets.
The role of driving and promoting the industry
The robot for thermosetting injection molding based on machine vision developed by this project completely replaces manual production, reducing production cost, improving work efficiency, ensuring product quality, and significantly improving the automation level of thermosetting injection molding production, which will be rapidly promoted and developed in thermosetting injection molding enterprises.
Conclusion
The development of a thermosetting plastic injection manipulator based on machine vision is an upgrade of traditional thermosetting plastic production technology, which provides automatic detection and production scheme for thermosetting plastic injection industry, promoting and realizing the high-end and intelligent development of thermosetting plastic industry, and producing good social and economic benefits.