a b s t r a c tThe requirement to increase inspection speeds for non-destructive testing (NDT) of composite aerospace parts is common to many manufacturers. The prevalence of complex curved surfaces in the industry provides motivation for the use of 6 axis robots in these inspections. The purpose of this paper is to present work undertaken for the development of a KUKA robot manipulator based automated NDT system. A new software solution is presented that enables flexible trajectory planning to be accomplished for the inspection of complex curved surfaces often encountered in engineering production. The techniques and issues associated with conventional manual inspection techniques and automated systems for the inspection of large complex surfaces were reviewed. This approach has directly influenced the development of a MATLAB toolbox targeted to NDT automation, capable of complex path planning, obstacle avoidance, and external synchronization between robots and associated external NDT systems. This paper highlights the advantages of this software over conventional off-line-programming approaches when applied to NDT measurements. An experimental validation of path trajectory generation, on a large and curved composite aerofoil component, is presented. Comparative metrology experiments were undertaken to evaluate the real path accuracy of the toolbox when inspecting a curved 0.5 m 2 and a 1.6 m 2 surface using a KUKA KR16 L6-2 robot. The results have shown that the deviation of the distance between the commanded TCPs and the feedback positions were within 2.7 mm. The variance of the standoff between the probe and the scanned surfaces was smaller than the variance obtainable via commercial path-planning software. Tool paths were generated directly on the triangular mesh imported from the CAD models of the inspected components without need for an approximating analytical surface. By implementing full external control of the robotic hardware, it has been possible to synchronise the NDT data collection with positions at all points along the path, and our approach allows for the future development of additional functionality that is specific to NDT inspection problems. For the current NDT application, the deviations from CAD design and the requirements for both coarse and fine inspections, dependent on measured NDT data, demand flexibility in path planning beyond what is currently available from existing off-line robot programming software.
PAUT inspection of complex-shaped composite materials through six DOFs robotic manipulatorsThe requirement to increase inspection speeds for the non-destructive testing (NDT) of composite aerospace parts is common to many manufacturers. The prevalence of complex curved surfaces in the industry provides significant motivation for the use of six-axis robots for the deployment of NDT probes in these inspections. The IntACom project, developed by TWI Technology Centre (Wales) and supported by a number of major aerospace partners and the Welsh government, has produced a prototype robotic NDT system. The prototype system is capable of inspecting complex-geometry composite components with great time savings. Two six-axis robotic arms deploy end effectors carrying phased array ultrasonic testing (PAUT) probes. A simple-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) has been developed to control all aspects of the robotic inspection, from initial loading of part data, through scanning of the part to data analysis. The collaboration between TWI and the University of Strathclyde has boosted the establishment of new approaches for robotic tool-path generation, targeted to NDT inspections. Many unique features, such as the real-time B-scan for optimisation of PAUT settings and the external control of the robotic manipulators to allow returning to points of interest, increase the usefulness of the inspection process. This paper presents an overview of the project and of the research outcomes.
Tessellated surfaces generated from point clouds typically show inaccurate and jagged boundaries. This can lead to tolerance errors and problems such as machine judder if the model is used for ongoing manufacturing applications. This paper introduces a novel boundary point detection algorithm and spatial FFT-based filtering approach, which together allow for direct generation of low noise tessellated surfaces from point cloud data, which are not based on pre-defined threshold values. Existing detection techniques are optimized to detect points belonging to sharp edges and creases. The new algorithm is targeted at the detection of boundary points and it is able to do this better than the existing methods. The FFT-based edge reconstruction eliminates the problem of defining a specific polynomial function order for optimum polynomial curve fitting. The algorithms were tested to analyse the results and measure the execution time for point clouds generated from laser scanned measurements on a turbofan engine turbine blade with varying numbers of member points. The reconstructed edges fit the boundary points with an improvement factor of 4.7 over a standard polynomial fitting approach. Furthermore, through adding artificial noise it has been demonstrated that the detection algorithm is very robust for out-of-plane noise lower than 25% of the cloud resolution and it can produce satisfactory results when the noise is lower than 75%. Highlights Introducing novel boundary point detection algorithm and spatial FFT-based filtering approach. Enabling reliable detection of boundary points and smooth boundary reconstruction. FFT-based edge reconstruction works better than polynomial curve fitting. Optimally smoothed edges facilitate the direct use of tessellated models for CAM tasks. The new detection algorithm tolerates out-of-plane noise. The reconstructed edges fit well the detected boundary points.
While both non-destructive evaluation (NDE) and structural health monitoring (SHM) share the objective of damage detection and identification in structures, they are distinct in many respects. This paper will discuss the differences and commonalities and consider ultrasonic/guided-wave inspection as a technology at the interface of the two methodologies. It will discuss how data-based/machine learning analysis provides a powerful approach to ultrasonic NDE/SHM in terms of the available algorithms, and more generally, how different techniques can accommodate the very substantial quantities of data that are provided by modern monitoring campaigns. Several machine learning methods will be illustrated using case studies of composite structure monitoring and will consider the challenges of high-dimensional feature data available from sensing technologies like autonomous robotic ultrasonic inspection. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Advanced electromagnetic non-destructive evaluation and smart monitoring’.
Performance of modern robotic manipulators has enabled research and development of fast automated non-destructive testing (NDT) systems for complex geometries. This paper presents recent outcomes of work aimed at removing the bottleneck due to data acquisition rates, to fully exploit the scanning speed of modern 6-DoF manipulators. State of the art ultrasonic instrumentation has been integrated into a large robot cell to enable fast data acquisition, high scan resolutions and accurate positional encoding. A fibre optic connection between the ultrasonic instrument and the server computer enables data transfer rates up to 1.6GB/s. Multiple data collection methods are compared. Performance of the integrated system allows traditional ultrasonic phased array scanning as well as full matrix capture (FMC). In FMC configuration, linear scan speeds up to 156mm/s with 64 pulses per frame are achieved - this speed is only constrained by the acoustic wave propagation in the component. An 8x increase of the speed (up to 1.25m/s) can be achieved using multiple transmission elements, reaching the physical limits for acceptable acoustic alignment of transmission and reception paths. Scan results, relative to a 1.2m x 3m carbon fibre sample, are presented
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