Title: The design of a compact laser scanner and an integrated simulation environment for smart manufacturing

Abstract:
Advanced manufacturing is on the rise with the notable progress in the additive and hybrid manufacturing field. However, most of the existing solutions are open loop without sensory feedback because of the lack of a small form factor sensor that could be placed near the end-effector tool. On top of that, there is difficulty developing closed loop control algorithms due to the lack of a simulation environment which can help make verification and iterative improvement faster.

In this work, we present a design framework for a miniaturized laser scanner that could be used for in-situ inspection in manufacturing processes by providing submillimeter-accurate, real-time depth information and RGB imagery. We also present a novel, all-in-one simulation environment tailored to robotic manufacturing with photorealistic laser projection, thermally modeled fluid,
robot arm and ROS integration.

We show the precision and flexibility of our compact laser scanner by demonstrating the  performance of several scan results under different hardware setup. To show the effectiveness of our robotic manufacturing simulation environment, we modeled our laser scanner, an additive PLA extrusion nozzle, a servoing robot arm and then showed two simple sensor placement strategies that maximize inspection coverage in manufacturing scenarios.

Committee:
Howie Choset (advisor)
Srinivasa G. Narasimhan
Sudharshan Suresh

Zoom Link: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/92703989273?pwd=R044NUdhVVcwYXkzODVhbjNBSm1zZz09

Meeting ID: 927 0398 9273
Passcode: 401215