A 3D Simulator of a 6-axis Target-Detector Manipulator

The 15-degree end station of the 1.7 MV tandem Pelletron accelerator is equipped with a six-axis target and detector positioning system, operated via stepping motors. Three axes control (x, y, z) positions of the target, two axes control angular orientations of the target, and the last controls the rotation of the detector. All motors are controlled by toggle switches mounted adjacent to the end station. Five of the axes have no quantitative readout of the positions, but the z-axis has an external ruler to determine the target z-position. For the other 5 axes, verification of the resulting position is done by shining a flashlight through an observation port and estimating the result. A new six axis target and detector positioning control interface is being developed that will use the existing motors, gearboxes, and limit switches, but will provide remote access via a LabVIEW interface system running on a computer in the control room. The heart of the system is a pair of trinamic motor control module (TMCM) control cards that have the same mechanical accuracy as the previous system but allows for increased confidence in the final positioning due to its numerical readout. The system will allow users to save configuration states of all six axes so that prior configurations can be restored with one click. The new system incorporates a software panel which blocks configurations that would harmful to the manipulator. A physical model which simulates the motion of the six-motor controller was designed and 3D printed. The 3D assembly was interfaced to the LabVIEW software via a TMCM. Prior to installation of the LabVIEW system on the 15-degree end station manipulator, the hardware and software simulator will be used to determine the optimal configurations.