Patent ID: 6843565

Claim:
A lamination apparatus for use in making a composite laminate article comprising: a work surface for receiving, in a predetermined sequence, a plurality of plies of composite laminating material; a laser projection system using predetermined projection points for outlining the boundaries of a ply onto the work surface, the image farther indicating at least a ply target point for making first contact of the ply with the underlying work surface; and a data set corresponding to each ply image in a sequence of ply images forming the composite article, for providing sequentially the predetermined projection points of each ply to the laser projection system, wherein the data set is formulated by a CAD system using predetermined design criteria to convert each ply in the plurality of plies forming the article and having a 3D geometric shape into a plurality of 2D ply segments arranged in a sequential pattern so that the assembled 2D ply segments approximate the 3D geometric shape.