IEEE PEDS 2011, Singapore, 5 - 8 December 2011

Novel Approach to Closed-Loop Control of Wire

Bending Machine
Henrik Lavrič, Miroslav Bugeza, Rastko Fiser
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Tržaška 25, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract- This paper describes the problems in nowadays for measuring straightness due to the lack of room. Besides
production of ribs, the most important assembling part of the material properties, such as the tensile strength of the wire
leverarch mechanism. The process of wire bending machine
upgrade is presented and the control principle for ribs geometry and the wire diameter, the setting of bending tolls and their
stabilization is proposed. The overall control scheme consists of triteness also affect the end quality of the rib. In a recent
inner - force control loops and outer – geometry control loop. study [1] it has been found out that the curvature of the wire
The inner loops control the force on respective roller of the in the straightener output almost linearly depends on the
horizontal and vertical plane of wire straightener according to tensile strength of the wire before straightening process.
the predefined reference values. These values are modified with
the superior loop in respect of geometry variations of the rib. Unfortunately, the measurement of the wire tensile strength
Required displacements of rollers are obtained using wedge is a destructive laboratory procedure and can not be put in
systems driven by stepper motors. The final geometry of rib is practice on the wire bending machine. It has been found out
analyzed by image processing algorithm inside the image that with adequate cyclic elastic-plastic deformations the
acquisition system. straightening error on the processed pieces can be minimized
[2, 3]. Our experiments also confirmed that with adequate
I. INTRODUCTION cyclic elastic-plastic deformation of the wire during the
The aim of every mass manufacture is to produce goods of straightening process, the flow stress of the rib geometry is
a guaranteed quality with a maximum financial outcome. This relatively stable if short intervals are observed, but in a large
results in a continuous effort to lower the cost of the input interval there is still some deviation noticeable. To achieve
material and to minimize the expense for manpower. The such effect, displacements of rollers have to be of
production of leverarch mechanisms for files is a typical considerable length and consecutively forces become high.
example of such process. The magnitudes of forces have to decline monotonously
The leverarch mechanism (Fig.1) consists of eight towards the output of the straightener in order to assure that
components. According to the way the mechanisms are elastic-plastic deformations decline too. However, when the
assembled and for their seamless operation, the rib is a crucial machine is working with the wire straightener set according
assembling component. Ribs are produced from a nickel- to described principle the triteness of rollers is very high and
plated wire in a continuous process with a multistage bending soon leading to surface degradation of wire. Ribs with
machine. To minimize fall-outs in the assembly process and tarnished surface are not accepted in further production.
manual readjustments of mechanisms, the rib must have the
accurate position of both ends in order to smoothly join with
the collecting forks. Second important quality factor is the
visual appearance of the surface. Material properties of the
input wire have the biggest influence on the rib geometry
scatter [1]. Because the quality of the wire of reasonable price
varies in a great extent it is impossible to maintain the
geometry of the ribs within the acceptable tolerance field with
nowadays bending machines.
The wire is fed into the wire straightener from a bobbin by
unwinding process. The wire is straightened firstly in a
horizontal plane, where the curvature due to the bobbing
winding is to be removed, and secondly in the vertical plane.
In nowadays bending machines the rollers on the wire
straightener are manually repositioned from time to time,
especially when problems with the rib geometry or tool
failures due to the wire jam occur.
The quality measure is the straightness of the wire and the
tuning is performed until no curvature is visually observed.
Fig. 1. Leverarch mechanism and the rib.
There is almost no possibility to apply any kind of a sensor

978-1-4577-0001-9/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE 1100

 Display Image acquisition Force information Data acquisition Hardware controls
system and control unit (force adjustment)
Geometry feedback
B&W image Force End Stepper
feedbacks positions motor drives

Wedge systems

Mechanical operations Stepper motors

Wire straightener
Bobbin of
wire
Fig. 2. Lump diagram of the wire bending machine process

II. BASIC DESIGN OF THE SYSTEM HARDWARE Data of the ribs geometry and corresponding data of forces
had been continuously collected and stored in the data base
Because of the aforementioned difficulties in the process of and afterwards processed by statistical tools in order to get
producing ribs and taking into account gained experience and correlations between forces and ribs geometry. On the basis
knowledge of the industrial partner mechanical engineering of these analyses the second step was performed, where new
developers, we upgraded the wire banding machine with a wire straightener was constructed, which allowed us to
sophisticated electromechanical and electronics equipment in instantly control forces on movable rollers [4, 5].
order to optimize the wire bending process and to stabilize the Longitudinal movements of rollers are performed by wedge
ribs geometry. systems that are driven by stepper motors in a form of linear
The upgrading of the machine was done in steps. In the actuators [6]. In Fig. 4 the wire straightener on wire bending
first step there was constructed a vision system and the wire machine input is shown. There is a horizontal plane half on
straightener was upgraded with the force measuring system the right side of the photo and the vertical plane half on the
(Fig. 2). The vision renders the continuous supervision of the left side. The wire positioned between the rollers is clearly
ribs geometry possible in order to easily eliminate unsuitable visible. Roller carriers are divided into halves to embrace the
pieces, thus not causing later fall-outs of complete leverarch force measuring sensors – load cells (Fig. 5). Wedges press
mechanisms. Two cameras of the image acquisition system, on the ball bearings, which are mounted into the roller
which are enclosed in a protective housing, are shown in carriers. On the top of the wedges there are proximity
Fig. 3. The photo was taken in the instant of time when one switches, which generate signals for end positions. Wedges
rib has left and the other is approaching the image acquisition are firmly connected to non-captive shafts of linear actuators
area. Below the two tubular prolongations, which prevent the (Fig. 6). These are 0.9° step angle stepper motors with a non
soap drizzle to smear the lenses, there is a reference plate of captive shaft (Fig. 7) to allow precisely controlled linear
known dimensions. High intensity red LEDs are used for travel of 3.9 µm/step [7]. The control strategy that was first
image illumination. applied in this force closed-loop was the constant value

Fig. 3. Two cameras of image acquisition system in protective housing on Fig. 4. Wire straightener with horizontal and vertical plane on wire bending
wire bending machine output. machine input.

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 Fig. 6. Wedges firmly connected to non-captive shafts of linear actuators.
Fig. 5. Roller carriers divided into halves to embrace force measuring
sensors – load cells.

control. Controllers were the cut-beat type with a dead band.

In the third step we closed outer - superior control loop. The
process of its final optimization is still in progress.
III. FORCE MEASURING SYSTEM
For the adequate acquisition quality of the roller force, the
measuring system sensitivity, linearity, robustness and
insusceptibility to EMI are major quality features. The system
is embedded in a harsh industrial environment surrounded by
inverter fed drives and other electric switching equipment,
which produces considerable level of EMI.
The voltage signal on the output of the load cell is in the
range of 10 mV within normal working conditions. This
information of the force has to be transmitted in a distance of
15 m. That is from the wire straightener side of the machine Fig. 7. Stepper motors in a form of linear actuators.
to the main switching and control cabinet, which is positioned
nearby the opposite side of the machine. The signal cable amplifier and then led into the transconductance amplifier
runs in half of the distance within the same duct as the (U – I transducer), which drives the current loop. On the other
unscreened power cables that supply inverter fed electric side of the loop, the current to voltage transformation is
motors. The signal conditioning part of the measuring system provided by transimpedance amplifier (I – U transducer). The
(Fig. 8) is split into two halves and the information is total gain of the measuring system is defined in the way that
transmitted within the current loop. The output voltage of the the input range of the digital acquisition (DAQ) module is
load cell is amplified with a precision instrumentation optimally utilized.

+ Load cell
– power supply Power
supply
Instrumentation U – I I–U
amplifier Screened transducer DAQ
transducer signal cable input
+ module,
A +
+ – Real time
– ∼ 15 m processing
unit
Proximity of wire straightener Main switching and
control cabinet
Load cell with bridge resistor network

Fig. 8. Lump diagram of the force measuring system

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 IV. CLOSED-LOOP CONTROL ALGORITHMS xakc
Fm
The overall control scheme consists of inner control loops
Fm,avg = ∑ . (1)
m = ( xakc − xavg ) nakc − navg
that control the force on each movable roller and outer -
superior control loop. The simplified block diagram of the Number of averaged values navg and force sequence action
software algorithm is shown in Fig. 9.a and the closed loop delay number nakc are predefined by the user. They are
control scheme is shown in Fig. 9.b. There are two processes obtained empirically and are in close correlation with the
that run in parallel, each on separate hardware, but necessary used wire characteristic and quality. The averaged values of
process variables are exchanged. The hardware used in this forces Fm,avg are then compared to the reference values and
application is from National Instruments intended for a real movement plan is obtained for each roller. This can be:
time processing. The data acquisition and control unit is enlarge force, reduce force or no movement, if the force for
composed of Compact FieldPoint (cFP) modules [8] and the respective roller is within the tolerance field. Movements of
image acquisition is based on the Compact Vision System rollers are performed in short fragments of time that are
(cVS) [9]. The program is composed in LabVIEW using succeeded with force measurements. This procedure takes
Real-Time Module [10]. The execution of algorithms is place until the reference force is reached or is terminated just
synchronized with the relevant operation within the working before moving phase.
cycle by hardware triggers. The working cycle of the wire
bending machine can be divided into moving phase and B. Rib with measurement and control principle
stationary phase. In the moving phase, the transport rail shifts The program cycle in the image acquisition system begins
the pieces to the next operation and raw wire is dragged with the trigger for acquisition of image. Defining the instant
through the wire straightener. In this phase no data of time for this trigger was a tricky task. First the image
acquisition or roller movements are performed. In the should be captured at minimum vibrations in order to prevent
stationary phase bending and boring tools move and also the the scatter but secondly far more annoying problem is
transport rail and the wire handler return to their initial droplets of soap that drizzle out of the rib end holes. There
position. are two cameras, one for each end of the rib. Within the field
of vision there is a corner of the reference plate (Fig. 12). The
A. Roller force control principle geometry solver first obtains edges of elements in the image,
The force measurement, being the first task in the cycle of and then defines coordinates of reference plate corners. With
the data acquisition and control unit program, is triggered for regard to these coordinates relative positions of rib ends
a predefined time just after the stationary phase begins. centers are calculated. Finally, the rib width is deduced from
Measurement results are sent to the display and to the the absolute width of the reference plate, positions of rib ends
data base. For the force closed-loop control multiple centers and the wire diameter. This value is then displayed
measured readings Fm are averaged using (1) and stored in the data base together with relative positions of
the rib end centers. The averaged rib width dm,avg is calculated
9.a in similar manner as the average value of the force. The
algorithm is presented in (2)
xakc
dm
d m,avg = ∑ . (2)
m = ( xakc − xavg ) nakc − navg

The averaged rib width dm,avg is later on used in the vertical

force reference value correction procedure.
Analyses of the rib geometry and belonging forces in data
that were collected after the first step of upgrade pointed out
that the longitudinal position of rib ends is mostly affected by
the residual vertical curvature of wire; consecutively forces
on the vertical plane of wire straightener are in great
correlation with the rib width. On the other hand, correct
distribution and magnitude of forces especially in the
horizontal plane lower the scatter of the rib geometry, which
was found out after analyzing the collected data in second
step of the upgrade.
9.b The control strategy that is currently in operation on the
wire bending machine is to maintain the forces on the
horizontal plane of wire straightener constant at the values
Fig. 9. Block diagram of a) the software process and b) closed loop control. that are captured after the manual repositioning of wire

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straightener. The values of forces on the vertical plane are measurement. A prototype of a robust and compact
captured also, but these are only the reference values for the optoelectronic sensor has already been developed [11]. It
initial operation of wire banding machine. When the detects the deflection of wire in vertical and horizontal plane.
predefined number of ribs is produced and their geometry is Reconstruction of the mechanical part of the wire bending
analyzed, the vertical initial reference value FVi is corrected machine is in progress. Reconstruction of the wire feeder in
according to (3) the central part of the machine is going to make room for the
sensor and thus making the measuring principle viable.
F 'Vi = FVi + ∆FV = FVi + k F ⋅ ( d opt − d m,avg ) , (3)
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
where difference ∆FV is obtained as product of user Experimental results were captured on the upgraded wire
predefined constant kF (depends on characteristic of used bending machine. The diagram in Fig. 11 shows forces on
wire) and difference between optimal dopt and averaged dm,avg rollers of the horizontal plane (Fh1-green, Fh2-light blue,
rib width. Fh3-pink, Fh4-violet), rib width (dark blue) and sliding
C. Future improvement of control algorithms average of width for 10 ribs (orange). Data were collected
Applied closed-loop control algorithms on upgraded wire when the second step upgrade on the wire bending machine
bending machine significantly improved the production was in operation and the force control-loops were closed. At
efficiency by lowering the fall-out in a great extent. the current piece of 2800 the wire straightener was manually
Experience obtained while working on the machine reveal repositioned. Forces were set to high levels and distributed to
ideas for further improvements. The main deficiency is the monotonously decline towards the output of wire straightener.
lack of wire straightness measurement immediately on the Before the repositioning the forces Fh2 and Fh3 were much
wire straightener output. If the information on wire lower. The effect on rib with is obvious. The scatter after
straightness is available, optimization of the closed-loop repositioning is much lower. The absolute values of forces are
control can be more efficient. It renders possible to observe obtained empirically.
the effect of roller force changes on the wire deflection The print screen of the process display is shown in Fig. 12.
directly on the wire straightener output rather than observing In the central part there are images of left and right camera
the geometry changes of the final rib (Fig. 10). The influence that were captured at trigger. They are overlain with the
of dead time due to multistage operation of the machine can geometric forms of the geometry resolver. Circular shapes are
be minimized. Geometry changes of the rib can also be rib ends and rectangular shapes of white color are ends of the
induced by the imperfect tools for mechanical operations. reference plate of known dimensions. Displayed rib width is
Consequently deteriorating changes of these tools can be slightly bigger (84.89 mm) then the optimal one should be
detected. Since consequences of the wire tensile strength and (84.75 mm). An offset of +0.14 mm puts it inside the allowed
diameter variations are detected directly on the wire tolerance band, well below the upper boundary of 85.20 mm.
straightener output they can be effectively compensated. This The tolerance field boundaries and the trend line are shown in
allows the use of a relatively cheaper wire. Furthermore, the middle of the display bottom. At the marked point on the
implementation of wire curvature measurement effectively trend line the outer control loop was put into operation. The
minimizes the human factor due to visual observation of the result of the outer loop operation can be observed with the
wire straightness. These are the main facts but not all that led obvious correction of the rib width toward the optimal value.
us to find out the possible way for a wire straightness On the upper green strip there is a time stamp of the new

Display Image acquisition Force information Data acquisition Hardware controls

system and control unit (force adjustment)
Geometry feedback Force
B&W image End Stepper
Curvature feedbacks
positions motor drives
feedback
Curvature Wedge systems
sensor

Feeder
Mechanical Stepper motors
operations
Wire straightener
Bobbin of
wire
Fig. 10. Future upgrade of wire bending machine with wire curvature sensor (feeder reconstruction needed first).

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 87
800

86,5 700

600
86
Rib width [mm]

500

Force [N]
85,5
400

300
85

200

84,5
100

84 0
2000 2200 2400 2600 2800 3000 3200 3400 3600 3800 4000
Legend: Width Sliding average of width for 10 pieces Fh1 Fh2 Fh3 Fh4 Current piece

Fig. 11. Diagram of width and forces before and after resetting of rollers.

batch and the current time stamp. On the left side of the some 10 % to some 2 %. Second improvement was done in
display bottom in the green area there are eight measured the visual appearance of ribs. Since the forces on the rollers
forces shown, four of the horizontal plane (H1 to H4) and are lower than they ought to be on the machine without
four of the vertical plane (V1 to V4). On the right side of the closed-loop control, triteness of rollers is reduced and their
display bottom in the light blue area there is a statistics of the life cycle prolonged. In the future the research will continue
current batch. It shows the number of produced ribs, the in the way of outer loop algorithm optimization on the basis
number of ribs inside the tolerance band and the number of of incorporation of the wire straightness measuring principle.
ribs outside the tolerance band. Detailed sorting within the This principle will also give means to minimize the
tolerance band is also possible, but was not activated for the subjectiveness of the operator and will give further
current batch. possibilities for automated repositioning of the wire
straightener.
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Fig. 12. Print screen of the process display.
[7] http://www.haydonkerk.com/LinearActuatorProducts/StepperMotor
LinearActuators/LinearActuatorsHybrid/Size17LinearActuator/tabid/79
VI. CONCLUSION /Default.aspx
[8] http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/13432.
The upgraded wire bending machine was in full operation [9] http://www.ni.com/pdf/products/us/2005_5732_221_101_lo.pdf.
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