Application of Discrete Exterior Calculus Methods for the Path Planning of a Manipulator Performing Thermal Plasma Spraying of Coatings

Abstract

This paper presents a new method of path planning for an industrial robot manipulator that performs thermal plasma spraying of coatings. Path planning and automatic generation of the manipulator motion program are performed using preliminary 3D surface scanning data from a laser triangulation distance sensor installed on the same robot arm. The new path planning algorithm is based on constructing a function of the geodesic distance from the starting curve. A new method for constructing a geodesic distance function on a surface is proposed, based on the application of Discrete Exterior calculus methods, which is characterized by a high computational efficiency. The developed algorithms and their software implementation were experimentally tested with the robotic microplasma spraying of a protective coating on the surface of a jaw crusher plate, which was then successfully operated for crushing mineral-based raw materials.