Abstract: A method and apparatus for aligning an actual surface with the internal coordinate system of a machine working thereon is disclosed. A part program controls the motions of a tape laying machine for depositing composite tape on the surface of a mandrel marked with a plurality of reference points. A probe assembly is attached to the tape laying head of the machine and can be used to measure the coordinates of the reference points on the mandrel surface relative to the internal coordinate system of the machine. These measurements and corresponding points on a representative surface permit a transformation function to be generated based upon the rotation and translation of one surface with respect to the other. The geometric data of instructions of the part program are transformed from their orientation relative to the reference surface to a new orientation relative to the mandrel surface by the transformation function before being applied to the tape laying machine.

Abstract: A tape placement method and apparatus for producing laminated articles from composite tape. The tape placement apparatus builds plies of a laminated article by laying courses of composite tape along natural or untensioned paths of a compound contoured surface. The natural paths are determined by a path generation routine which incrementally fits an untensioned path to a compound curved surface and outputs the data as a desired path for a tape course. The natural paths are generated as nonmachine specific geometric data which are translated into a machine instructions which cause controlled motions of the tape laying head of the tape placement apparatus. The translation into machine instructions includes an alignment process whereby variations in the orientation of the contoured surface can be corrected.