Automated object polishing with MotionCam-3D

Partner:

Robomation Robot Technologies Inc.

Challenge:

Robomation designs and manufactures customized robotic systems, including general-purpose sanding / polishing machines for car and bus manufacturers, airplane manufacturers, and other customers. 

In this specific use case, Robomation needed to develop a solution for automated sanding and polishing, using a 3D camera system that would be able to detect complex shining geometry of a product fixed on a table and guide the robot to perform the polishing task.

Before, robotic path planning was performed manually by the customer.

Solution:

MotionCam-3D M+

Robomation decided to use MotionCam-3D from Photoneo for surface scanning and geometry detection as the camera provides high-resolution and submillimeter accuracy 3D point clouds without noises and motion artifacts even when mounted to a moving robot.

The camera can acquire a continuous stream of 3D data without needing to stop the robot movement, which is a distinguishing feature that makes it stand out from other 3D vision technologies.

The color version of MotionCam-3D offers a unique combination of 3 key machine vision properties: high-quality 3D data, motion, and color. Thanks to this, the camera can provide both depth information to recognize surface deformation and color data to detect rust and similar color-based defects.

Discussion:

Robomation tested several types of 3D cameras for this application and only MotionCam-3D succeeded in suppressing reflections and noises on shiny surfaces. Another distinguishing feature of MotionCam-3D is that it is resistant to vibrations and unpredictable movement and the quality of 3D data is not affected by these external factors.

The camera body is very lightweight so it can be easily mounted onto a robotic arm in hand-eye setups, without limiting the robot movement.

And finally, what Robomation also appreciates about the camera is that it can be easily connected to third-party software.

Would you like to learn more about the capabilities of MotionCam-3D and how it can improve your processes? Contact Photoneo.