Design of the control system of the automatic fiber laser cutting machine for profiled materials

Most of the full-automatic fiber laser cutting machines for profiled materials adopt the characteristics of a closed control system structure with complex structure and poor scalability. An open automatic fiber laser cutting machine control system structure with an industrial control machine as the control core and 'IPC + motion control card' is proposed. The high-performance product PMAC2-PCI produced makes full use of IPC information processing capabilities and PMAC motion control capabilities to improve system performance. The system software is developed on the Windows operating system with LabVIEW as the platform. It mainly develops data acquisition, motion control and communication modules, and proposes a communication method between the upper computer and the lower computer through Active X automation technology. The results show that the developed system has the characteristics of strong scalability, short development cycle, and convenient operation and maintenance.

Because of its beautiful appearance, good structure and strength characteristics, the automatic fiber laser cutting machine profile material is widely used as roof trusses, trusses, rigid frames, keels, and even containers, pipes, etc.[1]. In the process of pipe processing, it is often encountered that pipes intersect. In the past, the intersecting line processing was mainly done manually, with low efficiency and uneven processing quality. Nowadays, most of the CNC cutting machines are used. Because laser cutting has the advantages of noiseless cutting, good verticality of the cutting seam, fine cutting seam, small heat-affected zone, and easy automatic control of the cutting process [2], it is widely used in cutting various profiles. The control system is the core of the automatic fiber laser cutting machine and plays a key role in the processing quality. However, most of the automatic fiber laser cutting machine control systems in my country use foreign products, which are expensive and poor in autonomy, and foreign automatic fiber laser cutting machine control systems Most of them adopt closed structure and poor openness, so it is necessary to study the control system of automatic fiber laser cutting machine.

Automatic fiber laser cutting machine control system selection, with the rapid development of computer technology, various types of open control systems have emerged as the times require, and are currently advancing in the direction of standardized open architecture. In terms of structural form, the control system can be roughly divided into 4 types.

Such as FANUCO system, MITSUBISH M50 system, Siemens 810 system, etc. It is developed by using specialized software development tools. This kind of system has poor scalability, modification and maintenance, and all require the help of specialized suppliers. So far, this kind of CNC system still occupies most of the market. However, due to the rapid development of open structure control systems, the application range of traditional CNC systems is gradually shrinking.

Open system with 'PC embedded in NC' structure

For example, FANUC18i system, Siemens 840D system, Num1060 and other numerical control systems. This kind of numerical control system is developed by using the abundant software resources of the computer on the premise of retaining the original core technology. Although this type of system is powerful and has a certain degree of openness, because its NC part is still a traditional CNC system, its overall architecture is still not open, and users cannot intervene in the core of the CNC system. Moreover, this type of system has a complex structure and is expensive.

Open system with 'NC embedded in PC' structure

It is composed of PC + open motion control card. The motion control card of automatic fiber laser cutting machine usually uses high-speed DSP as the CPU, which has a very fast calculation processing speed and can be used alone. Its open function library allows users to develop their own control systems under the Windows platform. This type of system has high openness and strong scalability, so it is widely used in the field of manufacturing automation control.