Inovo Robotics

I am now in my 8th week of my summer internship based at the Intelligent Automation Centre, Loughborough University as part of the The Midlands Centre for Data-Driven Metrology. 8 weeks ago, my colleagues (Luke Hutchinson and Thomas Mgbor) and I were given the task to develop a low-cost automated scanning system as currently the high-cost systems available are a barrier of entry for small to medium sized manufacturers, improving their quality control processes or allowing them to use reverse engineering. During our work we have developed two systems, which both use fringe projection 3D scanning to generate point cloud data of objects, by displaying light patterns which appear distorted from different angles which are then picked up by the cameras. The multiple scans taken from different angles are aligned using iterative closest point (ICP) and the point clouds generated can be measured and compared to existing product dimensions or 3D CAD models.  The first system uses two Basler AG Cameras and a Yuafey Pico Mini Projector mounted using an in-house designed carbon fibre rod and camera mounting brackets, allowing full adjustability of the cameras and projector, which is attached to an igus UK Rebel Robot. The software utilised for this system is RoboDK, Igus Robot Control and FlexScan3D. The combined cost of the system excluding labour is under £15000. The second set-up uses an Inovo Robotics Robot with the Polyga Inc. V1 Scanner attached to it, the software utilised for this system is ROS and Polyga’s Scanner API (SB SDK), fully automating the scanning and robot movement procedure. The combined cost of this system excluding labour is under £30000. Our plan over the next week is to create an automated VDI VDE 2634 test for both systems, allowing the accuracy of the scanners to be tested as well as gathering data in preparation for the 3D Metrology Conference we will be attending in September. A massive thank you to Peter Kinnell, Wen Claire Guo, Masoud Sotoodeh Bahraini and Connor Gill for your help and support over these last 8 weeks. #RoboticScanning #LoughboroughUniversity #IAC #MCDDM #IgusRebel #Polyga #InovoRobotics #LowCostAutomation