Model-based predictive brake control during weft insertion in air-jet weaving

International Journal of Production Research, vol. 59, pp. 4090–4107

Abstract

Air-jet weaving is one of the most efficient manufacturing processes for producing textile fabrics. During weft insertion, a yarn brake influences the quality of textile fabrics significantly. This brake is set up manually by a machine operator and the duration of the set-up process depends essentially on his experience. Furthermore, an inappropriate braking process might induce high tension in the weft thread which could cause backward movements of the thread as well as a defect in the fabric. For this reason, a braking system is developed which consists of a camera-based sensor and a continuously adjustable brake. The camera-based sensor enables the estimation of the weft velocity which is then controlled by a Model-based Predictive Controller (MPC). In this contribution, a weft insertion model is derived and validated experimentally. After that, this model is reduced in order to ensure real-time capability for its application in a Kalman filter as well as in the MPC. Finally, an MPC based on piecewise linearisation is proposed and implemented on an air-jet weaving machine. The presented experimental results show that yarn braking system compensates the changing behaviour of weft threads in different machine cycles and brakes the weft thread appropriately without a backward movement.

Authors 5

1. Tong Wu corresponding Aachen Institute of Automatic Control (IRT)

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Automatic Control, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

2. Sebastian Stemmler Aachen Institute of Automatic Control (IRT)

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Automatic Control, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

3. Maximilian Kemper Aachen Institut für Textiltechnik

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institut für Textiltechnik, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

4. Dirk Abel Aachen Institute of Automatic Control (IRT)

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Automatic Control, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

5. Thomas Gries Aachen Institut für Textiltechnik

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institut für Textiltechnik, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany