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Robot Revolution (evolution?)

ArkansasBeeper

Kind of a weird topic but here we go! 

Has anyone had (or knows of someone who has had) success with repurposing welding robots to use with a scanner? 
For the last 3 weeks I have been walking past a row of sad sad decommissioned Fanuc welding robots sitting there on pallets. They are not new, nor fancy, but still perfectly serviceable robot arms. But with the addition of some liner carriages they would be large enough to automate the scanning of our quite large products. 
Maybe some of the automotive folks already have automated scanning cells and can share some insights? 

  • 0

    I'd be shocked if anyone has actually done this. You'd have to have a proper team of serious software programmers; like the kind that make half a million $ a year working on computer vision applications. Trying to cook something like this up in-house the company would spend way more paying people to figure it out and get it working than they would if they bought an off the shelf solution/machine.

  • 0 in reply to Ed K

    Maybe, but in my case we already have the robot whispers on staff. (well they say we do.... )

    All it needs to do is waggle its arm in a pre-programmed path that happens to insect the vision cone of the laser scanner and a part (much like a painting robot actually). The laser would not be interfaced with the arm at all, you would just be replacing the human motors with a robot motor. Could probably even add some distance sensors so it "shouldn't" smack into things if someone loaded the part incorrectly. 

    Hexagon shows some stuff on their website with robotics, in the depictions its just an arm holding a Leica Scanner. 

  • 0

    Look up ATT Metrology Solutions.  They implemented some higher precision encoders onto Fanuc Robot Arm knuckles (think a motorized rover arm).  Then they put laser scanners on them.  They were running lights out, doing in-process checks of composite airframe assembly. I saw it highlighted during a Hexagon lunch and learn about 2 years ago and was completely blown away by it.

  • 0 in reply to ArkansasBeeper

    Well it depends - a Laser on a CMM or arm is tied into the positioning of the equipment, either the scales in the CMM or the encoders in the arm joints.

    Laser trackers rely on the tracker unit tracking the T-probe etc.

    Any other form (structured light for example like Atlas or Marvel scan) relies on triangulation of targets and a know scale.

    What sort of Laser would you envisage sticking on the robot?

  • 0 in reply to NinjaBadger

    An AS1-XL equipped Leica. Or maybe the "targetless scanning"  Hexagon Hyperscan (aside from the targets on the scanner cage, shhhh) 

    This would truly be a KISS solution, Robot holds the 3rd party measuring system and simply moves it through a pre-determined 3d spatial environment. 

    Also for reference sake, they are Fanuc m-710ic/20l Multi Purpose arms. 

  • 0 in reply to ArkansasBeeper

    We have a couple robot arms like this here where I work. It's programmed for loading inserts into a machine before the Injection Molding process. I believe they are also Fanuc. Been a moment since I went to look at them

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