DE202011110437U1 - Control system for laser cutting of battery plates - Google Patents

Abstract

Control system for laser cutting of battery plates with a control unit and an execution unit, wherein the control unit comprises a pattern data receiving module for receiving pattern data of a battery plate to be cut and a trajectory generation module for calculating trajectory data of a laser beam based on the pattern data of the battery plate and the execution unit for receiving the Trajectory data and is provided for controlling the position of a reflected laser beam.

Description

Field of the invention

The present invention relates to the control technology for the laser cutting of battery plates in their production, in particular to a control system for laser cutting of battery plates.

Technical background

As one of the most important components in e.g. Lithium-ion batteries are a newly developed, very popular technology for hybrid vehicles, but they are not yet fully developed in terms of manufacturing technology. From the prior art it is known to cut the anode and cathode material of the battery cell for shaping the battery cell of a drive battery. Conventional mechanical cutting systems can create burrs on the cut battery plates, compromising both the safety of the lithium-ion battery and the characteristics of the battery plates. By laser cutting the anode and cathode material of the battery cell, the disadvantages of the mechanical cutting systems can be overcome; In this case, a laser beam is guided along the material and this cut through the intense laser energy, so that different, predetermined plate shapes arise with several excellent tabs.

• a. Ein kontinuierlicher Schneidvorgang auf dem Fließband bleibt aus, weil mit den derzeit bekannten Steuersystemen durch Beschriftung nur ein aufeinanderfolgendes Schneiden bzw. Beschriften von einzelnen Produkten möglich ist;
• b. Im Falle einer Eingabe von Mustern dauert es nach dem Verarbeiten eines aktuellen Musters eine bestimmte Zeit, um das nächste Muster zu laden und zu verarbeiten. Diese Zeitdauer stellt bei hoher Fließbandgeschwindigkeit eine sogenannte Zeitscheibe dar, die nicht zu vernachlässigen ist und die weder beeinflusst noch beseitigt werden kann. Dies kann zu großen Positionsfehlern während des Schneidvorgangs führen;
• c. Selbst eine geringfügige Formänderung der zu schneidenden Batterieplatten macht eine aufwendige Neugestaltung und die Eingabe von neuen Mustern notwendig. Mit anderen Worten lässt sich das Steuerprogramm während dessen Betriebs nicht durch eine Parameteränderung den jeweils veränderten Mustern anpassen.

In the previously known control systems for the laser cutting of battery plates, the input of patterns is generally by means of the laser marking software and the high-speed guidance of the laser beam to the products passed on the conveyor belt is controlled with a galvanometer mirror as an execution unit to leave traces on the products. For a batch-wise battery plate cutting process, such control systems are not suitable insofar as the following problems remain unresolved:

• a. A continuous cutting process on the assembly line remains, because with the currently known control systems by labeling only a sequential cutting or labeling of individual products is possible;
• b. In the case of inputting patterns, after processing a current pattern, it takes a certain time to load and process the next pattern. This period of time represents a so-called time slice at high line speed, which is not negligible and which can neither be influenced nor eliminated. This can lead to large position errors during the cutting process;
• c. Even a slight change in shape of the battery plates to be cut makes a complex redesign and the entry of new patterns necessary. In other words, during its operation, the control program can not be adapted to the respectively changed patterns by changing the parameters.

Disclosure of the invention

The present invention has for its object to provide a control system for laser cutting of battery plates, which can be well adapted to a change in the plate pattern and can ensure the accuracy of the resulting patterns by cutting.

• 1) Eine Steuereinheit empfängt die Musterdaten einer zu schneidenden Batterieplatte und erzeugt entsprechende Bewegungsbahndaten;
• 2) die Steuereinheit sendet ein Steuerkommando und die Bewegungsbahndaten an eine Ausführungseinheit;
• 3) die Ausführungseinheit führt das Steuerkommando aus und steuert einen Laserstrahl so, dass er sich auf einer durch die Bewegungsbahndaten vorgegebenen Bewegungsbahn bewegt.

The control system according to the invention for laser cutting of battery plates comprises the following steps:

• 1) A control unit receives the pattern data of a battery plate to be cut and generates corresponding trajectory data;
• 2) the control unit sends a control command and the trajectory data to an execution unit;
• 3) the execution unit executes the control command and controls a laser beam so as to move on a trajectory predetermined by the trajectory data.

• 31) Ein Kommandoverarbeitungsmodul der Ausführungseinheit empfängt von der Steuereinheit das Steuerkommando und reiht die darin enthaltenen Warteschlangenbefehle nacheinander in einen Kommandowarteschlangen-Zwischenspeicher ein;
• 32) ein Warteschlangenkommando-Parsermodul der Ausführungseinheit parst die Daten im Kommandowarteschlangen-Zwischenspeicher, erzeugt dadurch Koordinatenpunkte der Bewegungsbahn und gibt diese Koordinatenpunkte nacheinander in einen Ausgabenwarteschlangen-Zwischenspeicher ein;
• 33) ein Datensendemodul der Ausführungseinheit sendet die Koordinatenpunkte nacheinander an einen Galvanometerspiegel, so dass der Laserstrahl durch den Galvanometerspiegel sukzessiv auf den Koordinatenpunkten zugeordnete Positionen reflektiert wird.

In this case, step 3) again comprises the following steps:

• 31) A execution processing module of the execution unit receives the control command from the control unit and sequentially enqueues the queue instructions contained therein into a command queue buffer;
• 32) a queue command parser module of the execution unit parses the data in the command queue buffer, thereby creating coordinate points of the trajectory and successively entering those coordinate points in an output queue buffer;
• 33) a data transmission module of the execution unit sends the coordinate points successively to a galvanometer mirror, so that the laser beam is successively reflected by the galvanometer mirror positions assigned to the coordinate points.

The pattern data received at step 1) includes the height and width of the battery plate and the tabs, the individual edge lengths of the battery plate, and the spacing of adjacent tabs.

The control system for laser cutting of battery plates according to the invention comprises a control unit and an execution unit, wherein the control unit is a pattern data receiving module for receiving pattern data of a to be cut A battery plate and a movement path generation module for calculating movement path data of a laser beam based on the pattern data of the battery plate and the execution unit is provided for receiving the movement path data and for controlling the position of a reflected laser beam.

The execution unit includes a command processing module, a queue command parser module, a data transmission module, and a galvanometer mirror. Here, the command processing module receives from the control unit a control command and puts the contained therein queue commands in a command queue buffer. The queue command parser module parses the data in the command queue buffer, thereby creating coordinate points of the trajectory and entering those coordinate points in an output queue buffer. The data transmission module sends the coordinate points one after the other to the galvanometer mirror.

Moreover, the execution unit includes a process management module.

Compared with the prior art, the present invention offers the following advantages: By describing the sequence of movement of a laser beam through a so-called trajectory, i. by a pre-planned course of movement of the laser beam, a continuous cutting process by means of laser is possible, so that an increase in the speed in the shaping of the battery cell and a cutting accuracy of e.g. below 0.1 mm at an assembly line speed of 400 mm / s. The path description also allows parameters such as dimensional data of the patterns to be entered or changed in a simple manner in order to make flexible adjustments to frequent changes in the plate patterns.

Description of the picture

The only shows a block diagram of an embodiment of the invention.

shows a system for shaping or laser cutting battery plates of a lithium ion battery with a control unit and an execution unit, the control unit comprising a pattern data reception module and a motion path generation module and the execution unit a process management module, a command processing module, a queue command parser module, a data transmission module and a galvanometer mirror.

Here, the pattern data receiving module is for receiving pattern data of a battery plate to be cut, and the trajectory generating module is for calculating trajectory data of a laser beam based on the pattern data of the battery plate. In particular, the parameter data previously input by the user, such as the height and width of the battery plate to be cut and the tabs formed thereon, the distance between these tabs, and control information, such as e.g. receive the cutting speed to then generate with the trajectory generating module a trajectory corresponding to the inputted pattern data relating to the battery plate and the tabs.

With the command processing module, control commands can be received by the control unit and a large number of interface functions can be provided for the interface between the execution unit and the top-level application programs. The control commands can be subdivided into queuing commands and general commands, the queuing commands and the like. Queue open command, queue close command, queue execution command, straight line add command, circular arc add command, speed setting command, laser start delay command, laser off delay command, delay wait command between line pieces, command to set an actual motion coefficient in marking on-the-fly, and trigger command under predetermined conditions. As the general commands, the laser type selection command, the laser power setting command, the laser position control command, the queuing command, the laser-on command, the laser-cut control command, and so forth are specifically referred to. The two types of instructions are differently processed: in the case of a queue instruction, this instruction and additional pattern data are successively put into a command queue buffer, while in the presence of a general command, various control operations corresponding to the instruction are performed.

With the help of the queue command parser module, the data can be parsed in the command queue buffer, thereby creating coordinate points of a trajectory and entering these coordinate points in an output queue buffer. After queuing a queue command into the queue buffer, the data therein is parsed by the command receive module. In the case of a queuing control command such as power-on, power-off or execution command, it is sent to a process control module to perform appropriate actions. In the case of a speed setting command, the current queue speed is updated to a new speed value. In the presence of a position add command such as straight line or arc add command, the interpolation function is called and interpolated at the given queue speed in accordance with the line piece and its type resulting between the first coordinate point and newly added coordinate point, so that between the two given coordinate points, several coordinate points that are on a line piece are created and stored by interpolation calculated coordinate points in the output queue buffer.

The data transmission module is provided for successively sending the coordinate points to the galvanometer mirror. After generating the data coordinate points and storing them in the output queue buffer by the queue command parser module, the coordinate or position information is transmitted by the transmission module at a preset frequency of e.g. 100 kHz successively sent to the galvanometer mirror so that it can reflect the focus of a laser beam to a required coordinate position associated position.

In addition, a process management module is provided which provides for the communication and interaction between the three modules described above. Thus, e.g. the command receive module, when receiving a command to execute the queue data output, instructs the data transmission module via the process management module to transmit position point information to the galvanometer mirror. Upon receipt of this command, the data transmission module sends the coordinate points in the output queue to the galvanometer mirror. In addition, the process management module also manages some states of the entire program, such as setting whether to send all data in the queue to the galvanometer mirror, the current running speed, and the positioning of the laser beam.

In operation, the control unit first receives the parameter data previously input by the user, such as the height and width of the battery plate to be cut and the tabs formed thereon, the distance between these tabs, and control information, such as, e.g. the cutting speed to then generate a trajectory corresponding to the inputted pattern data concerning the battery plate and the tabs. In addition, the control unit issues control commands including queue commands and general commands to the lowest-level execution unit.

The execution unit executes the control commands, processing the lane description queue accordingly. For example, see at a certain position a cutting process of the tabs instead. For this purpose, a laser beam is guided along the path of movement generated on the battery plate in order to sever it with the intensive laser energy. After executing the action queue command, the laser beam is returned to the starting point for the next action queue command to be executed. During the execution of the program, further control commands given by the user can be executed at the same time, such as stop, restart and parameter setting.

The above is not a limitation of the invention, but is merely illustrative of preferred embodiments of the invention. Any simple derivation or substitution made by one of ordinary skill in the art is within the scope of the present invention.

Claims (3)

A control system for laser cutting battery plates with a control unit and an execution unit, the control unit comprising a pattern data receiving module for receiving pattern data of a battery plate to be cut and a trajectory generating module for calculating trajectory data of a laser beam from the pattern data of the battery plate and the execution unit for receiving the Trajectory data and for controlling the position of a reflected laser beam is provided. A control system for laser cutting battery plates according to claim 1, characterized in that the execution unit comprises a command processing module, a queue command parser module, a data transmission module and a galvanometer mirror, wherein the command processing module receives a control command from the control unit and queues the queue commands contained therein into a command queue buffer in which the queue command parser module parses the data in the command queue buffer, thereby generating coordinate points of the trajectory and placing those coordinate points in an output queue. Buffer enters, and wherein the data transmission module sends the coordinate points successively to the galvanometer mirror. A control system for laser cutting battery plates according to claim 2, characterized in that the execution unit further comprises a process management module.

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