Online sorting robots based on image recognition are key pieces of equipment for the intelligent washing of coal mines. In this paper, a Delta-type, coal gangue sorting, parallel robot is designed to automatically identify and sort scattered coal and gangue on conveyor belts by configuring the image recognition system. Robot calibration technology can reduce the influence of installation error on system accuracy and provides the basis for the robot to accurately track and grab gangue. Due to the fact that the angle deflection error between the conveyor belt coordinate system and the robot coordinate system is not considered in the traditional conveyor belt calibration method, an improved comprehensive calibration method is put forward in this paper. Firstly, the working principle and image recognition and positioning process of the Delta coal gangue sorting robot are introduced. The scale factor parameter Factor_c of the conveyor encoder is adopted to characterize the relationship between the moving distance of the conveyor and the encoder. The conveyor belt calibration experiment is described in detail. The transformation matrix between the camera, the conveyor belt, and the robot are obtained after establishment of the three respective coordinate systems. The experimental results show that the maximum cumulative deviation of traditional calibration method is 13.841 mm and the comprehensive calibration method is 3.839 mm. The main innovation of the comprehensive calibration is such that the accurate position of each coordinate in the robot coordinate system can be determined. This comprehensive calibration method is simple and feasible, and can effectively improve system calibration accuracy and reduce robot installation error on the grasping accuracy. Moreover, a calculation method to eliminate duplicate images is put forward, with the frame rate of the vision system set at seven frames per second to avoid image repetition acquisition and missing images. The experimental results show that this calculation method effectively improves the processing efficiency of the recognition system, thereby meeting the demands of the grab precision of coal gangue separation engineering. The goal revolving around “safety with few people and safety with none” can therefore be achieved in coal gangue sorting using robots.

The Delta robots are widely used in packaging, sorting, precision positioning, and other fields. Motion accuracy is an important indicator for evaluating robot performance. However, due to the existence of mechanism errors, the motion accuracy of the robot will be reduced. Therefore, how to reduce motion errors and improve accuracy are important issues for robots. The purpose of the present study is to analyze the motion error and propose an error compensation scheme to improve the motion accuracy of the robot. Firstly, the kinematic model of the robot is established by the D-H matrix transformation method. An error model considering dimension error, the error of revolute joint clearance, driving error, and the error of spherical joint clearance is established. Additionally, the influence of different errors on the motion accuracy is analyzed. Secondly, an error compensation strategy of controlling the driving angle is proposed. The analysis of error compensation is carried out by a numerical example. Comparing the results before and after compensation, it is known that the robot can move along the desired position, so the notion error of the robot is compensated, which proves that this method is effective for improving the motion accuracy of the robot.

Herein, to accurately predict tool wear, we proposed a new deep learning network—that is, the IE-Bi-LSTM—based on an informer encoder and bi-directional long short-term memory. The IE-Bi-LSTM uses the encoder part of the informer model to capture connections globally and to extract long feature sequences with rich information from multichannel sensors. In contrast to methods using CNN and RNN, this model could achieve remote feature extraction and the parallel computation of long-sequence-dependent features. The informer encoder adopts the attention distillation layer to increase computational efficiency, thereby lowering the attention computational overhead in comparison to that of a transformer encoder. To better collect location information while maintaining serialization properties, a bi-directional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) network was employed. After the fully connected layer, the tool-wear prediction value was generated. After data augmentation, the PHM2010 basic dataset was used to check the effectiveness of the model. A comparison test revealed that the model could learn more full features and had a strong prediction accuracy after hyperparameter tweaking. An ablation experiment was also carried out to demonstrate the efficacy of the improved model module.

This paper proposes an enhanced multi-strategy sparrow search algorithm to optimize the trajectory of a six-axis industrial robot, addressing issues of low efficiency and high vibration impact on joints during operation. Initially, the improved D-H parametric method is employed to establish both forward and inverse kinematic models of the robot. Subsequently, a 3-5-3 mixed polynomial interpolation trajectory planning approach is applied to the robot. Building upon the conventional sparrow algorithm, a two-dimensional Logistic chaotic system initializes the population. Additionally, a Levy flight strategy and nonlinear adaptive weighting are introduced to refine the discoverer position update operator, while an inverse learning strategy enhances the vigilante position update operator. These modifications boost both the local and global search capabilities of the algorithm. The improved sparrow algorithm, based on 3-5-3 hybrid polynomial trajectory planning, is then used for the time-optimal trajectory planning of the robot. This is compared with traditional sparrow search algorithm and particle swarm algorithm optimization results. The findings indicate that the proposed enhanced sparrow search algorithm outperforms both the standard sparrow algorithm and the particle swarm algorithm in terms of convergence speed and accuracy for robot trajectory optimization. This can lead to the increased work efficiency and performance of the robot.

Spring failure is one of the critical causes of the structural damage and low screening efficiency of mining vibrating screens. Therefore, spring failure diagnosis is necessary to prompt maintenance for the safety and reliability of mining vibrating screens. In this paper, a spring failure diagnosis approach is developed. A finite element model of mining vibrating screens is established. Simulations are carried out and the spring failure influence rules of spring failure on the dynamic characteristics of mining vibrating screens are obtained. These influence rules indicate that the amplitude variation coefficients (AVCs) of the four spring seats in the x, y, and z directions can reveal two kinds of single spring failure and four kinds of double spring failure, which are useful for diagnosing spring failure. Furthermore, experiments are conducted. Comparison analyses of the experimental results and simulation results indicate that the proposed approach is capable of revealing various kinds of spring failure. Therefore, this approach provides useful information for diagnosing spring failure and guiding technical staff to routinely maintain mining vibrating screens.

Springs are critical components in mining vibrating screen elastic supports. However, long-term alternating loads are likely to lead to spring failures, likely resulting in structural damages to the vibrating screen and resulting in a lower separation efficiency. Proper dynamic models provide a basis for spring failure diagnosis. In this paper, a six-degree-of-freedom theoretical rigid body model of a mining vibrating screen is proposed, and a dynamic equation is established in order to explore the dynamic characteristics. Numerical simulations, based on the Newmark-β algorithm, are carried out, and the results indicate that the model proposed is suitable for revealing the dynamic characteristics of the mining vibrating screen. Meanwhile, the mining vibrating screen amplitudes change with the spring failures. Therefore, six types of spring failure are selected for simulations, and the results indicate that the spring failures lead to an amplitude change for the four elastic support points in the x, y, and z directions, where the changes depend on certain spring failures. Hence, the key to spring failure diagnosis lies in obtaining the amplitude change rules, which can reveal particular spring failures. The conclusions provide a theoretical basis for further study and experiments in spring failure diagnosis for a mining vibrating screen.