Novel approach to closed-loop control of wire bending machine

This paper describes the problems in nowadays production of ribs, the most important assembling part of leverarch mechanism. The process of wire bending machine upgrade is presented and the control principle for ribs geometry stabilization is proposed. The overall control scheme consists of inner - force control loops and outer - geometry control loop. The inner loops control the force on respective roller of the horizontal and vertical plane of wire straightener according to the predefined reference values. These values are modified with the superior loop in respect of geometry variations of the rib. Required displacements of rollers are obtained using wedge systems driven by stepper motors. The final geometry of rib is analyzed by image processing algorithm inside the image acquisition system.