Computer-aided planning system for multiple laser-scanner applications

Laser scanners are efficient tools for on-line inspection of workpiece dimensions and for closed-loop process control.Relevant industrial applications require frequently multiple scanners to acquire many significant dimensions of the workpiece at the same time.One of the most crucial tasks hereby is to determine the spatial arrangement of multiple scanners.Until now, this task has been achieved by triel and error.Heuristic rules are available for simple geometry but not available for complicated workpiece geometry.The effectiveness of this planning approach can only be checked after the physical system installation.This paper presents a computer-aided planning system which derives an optimal spatial arrangement of the multi-scanner setup for 2-dimensional measurement tasks automatically.The necessary inputs of the system are the geometry of the workpiece, the regions of interest on the workpiece and the technical specifications of the sensors.Effects of changing properties such as accu racy or range of the selected sensors can be studied through a realistic sensor simulation. (RSS).The accuracy of the multi scanner setup can be verified on the planning system by specifying the accuracy and the relative arrangement of the single scanners.