Effective design and implementation of specific displacement diagrams to control kinetic sculptures

VÚTS a.s., Mechatronic Department, Svárovská 619, 460 01, Liberec XI, Czech Republic

^* Pavel Dostrašil: pavel.dostrasil@vuts.cz

Abstract

Electronic cams are used for different manufacturing systems, but in terms of displacement diagrams, they have common characteristics. The emphasis is usually placed on maximum accuracy, minimum machine cycle time and the displacement diagram has a simple shape. This paper addresses a completely different case, which shows that the use of electronic cams is very diverse. An Omron’s electronic cam was used to control kinetic art sculptures. It was necessary to develop an implementation that would be able to accommodate a large number of very long and complex displacement diagrams. Some sculptures contained up to 147 interpolating axes and their programs took up to an hour. The proposal builds on the basic animation and designer’s demands, but it must comply with all the limits of the mechanism (maximum speed, torque, etc.). For this purpose, an independent software tool was developed. The final displacement diagram is composed from polynomial of the 5th order by defining the 0th, 1st, and 2nd derivatives at the key points. This method of design has proved to be very effective, and in addition, this implementation brought a significant saving of memory and reduction of computational complexity.