Structural Quality Inspection Based on a RGB-D Sensor: Supporting Manual-to-Automated Assembly Operations 2015-01-2499
The assembly and manufacture of aerospace structures, in particular legacy products, relies in many cases on the skill, or rather the craftsmanship, of a human operator. Compounded by low volume rates, the implementation of a fully automated production facility may not be cost effective. A more efficient solution may be a mixture of both manual and automated operations but herein lies an issue of human error when stepping through the build from a manual operation to an automated one. Hence the requirement for an advanced automated assembly system to contain functionality for inline structural quality checking. Machine vision, used most extensively in manufacturing, is an obvious choice, but existing solutions tend to be application specific with a closed software development architecture.
Here we address these issues, presenting a robust solution for structural quality inspection using a low cost RGB-D sensor (Asus Xtion Pro Live) and open source libraries for point cloud analysis and processing. The system checks the quality of manually assembled sub-components before automated robot controlled operations are undertaken.
Citation: Maiolino, P., Woolley, R., Popov, A., and Ratchev, S., "Structural Quality Inspection Based on a RGB-D Sensor: Supporting Manual-to-Automated Assembly Operations," SAE Int. J. Mater. Manf. 9(1):12-15, 2016, https://doi.org/10.4271/2015-01-2499. Download Citation
Author(s):
Perla Maiolino, Richard A. J. Woolley, Atanas Popov, Svetan Ratchev
Affiliated:
University of Nottingham
Pages: 4
Event:
SAE 2015 AeroTech Congress & Exhibition
ISSN:
1946-3979
e-ISSN:
1946-3987
Also in:
SAE International Journal of Materials and Manufacturing-V125-5EJ, SAE International Journal of Materials and Manufacturing-V125-5
Related Topics:
Assembling
Automation
Production
Robotics
Computer software and hardware
Architecture
Sensors and actuators
Inspections
SAE MOBILUS
Subscribers can view annotate, and download all of SAE's content.
Learn More »