Development of a Robotic 3D Scanning System for Reverse Engineering of Freeform Part

Abstract

Nowadays, reverse engineering has been used more often for inspection and manufacturing in industry, such as the freeform part widely used in the engineering areas of automotives, aerospace and shipbuilding. However, due to the entire process is complicated and largely human intervened, the efficiency is low and the cost is very high. In this research, we propose a robotic 3D scanning system for parts having freeform surfaces that significantly reduce the time. Two scanning modes are designed for measuring different kinds of part automatically in this system. The scan plan and the robot scan program are also described. The system can be integrated in mechanical machining. An industrial application is presented.