Lovell, Simon Piers; (1990) An intelligent robotic inspection system for airframe structures. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Robot trajectory control is currently performed in an open loop fashion with the trajectory being specified as either a series of end point positions or as a series of joint angle values which are passed through in sequence. In order to perform any complex tasks in an unstructured or semi-structured environment an 'intelligent' robot is required which can sense its environment and alter its trajectory accordingly. This thesis describes the development of an 'intelligent' robotic inspection system which is capable of automatically deploying test probes for the inspection of the structures commonly found in modern airframes with no prior knowledge of the structure being inspected. It utilises a Puma 560 (articulated arm) industrial robot which is under supervisory control from an IBM ps2 personal computer and a wrist-mounted CCD camera with a low power industrial laser to acquire information about the robot's environment. In order to improve the positional accuracy of the Puma it has been calibrated using a computerised surveying system. Extensive use is made of image processing, pattern recognition and mathematical surface modelling to build up a model of the structure being examined and this is used to define the trajectory of the end point of the Puma.

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