Automatic Procedure for Steel Cord Belt Splicing Preparation

Conveyor belts play an essential role in mining, making belt splicing a critical operation in the maintenance process. Currently, this procedure is performed manually and can last up to 48 h, exposing operators to risks while performing the task. Additionally, the process is error prone, and the splicing quality depends directly on the maintenance team’s expertise. As a first attempt to automate belt splicing preparation, the Instituto Tecnológico Vale, together with the Brazilian mining company Vale S.A., is investigating the use of a rotary rubber cutting tool attached to a robotic manipulator arm. In this work, we propose a new multistep concept for automating the traditional belt splicing process. Our proposal includes a virtual environment simulator, allowing the verification of critical components of the system prior to real-world execution: the appropriate sensor set for modeling the conveyor belt and validation of the manipulator motions to remove the rubber using the cutting tool. After virtual validation, we developed two instrumented test benches for experimental validation: a belt modeling prototype using a small-scale industrial manipulator and a customized instrumented bench with a cutting tool prototype, developed to evaluate the efforts involved in the rubber removal process. This paper focuses on rubber cutting bench design and modeling to calculate the resulting forces and moments applied to the robotic manipulator during the process. The simulated and preliminary real-world experiments have shown that the magnitude of these efforts is compatible with a robot working class with a 200 kg payload. In this sense, the proposed robotic and mechanical system design is a feasible first step to fully automating belt splicing preparation within mining environments.