Title: A novel mechatronic design of a 3D laser scanning system

Authors: Zi Ma, Yang Wang, Aiguo Li, Furong Gao, Quanmin Zhu

Addresses: Automation Research Centre, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, P.R. China. ' Automation Research Centre, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, P.R. China. ' Automation Research Centre, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, P.R. China. ' Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong. ' Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences (CEMS), University of the West of England (UWE), Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY, UK

Abstract: This paper presents a mechatronic design of three-dimensional (3D) surface scanning equipment. Optical, mechanical and electrical technologies are integrated into the proposed system and the object with freeform complex surface can be scanned without any blind points. The scanning system consists of five main units as follows. 1) A C-arm: It is a metallic arm with C shape slide-rail, which functioned as a carrier of the laser scanner. 2) A laser scanner, with adaptive focusing function. 3) An automatic positioner with lift and rotation functions, which is taken as a carrier of measured objects. 4) A system control cubicle, which includes all hardware of the electrical driver system. 5) A master computer is used as control terminal of the system. The effectiveness of the proposed measurement machine is demonstrated with several real bench tests.

Keywords: reverse engineering; mechatronic system design; 3D surface scanning; reconstruction; freeform surfaces; machatronics; laser scanning; automatic positioning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAMECHS.2010.030856

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems, 2010 Vol.2 No.1/2, pp.124 - 131

Published online: 10 Jan 2010 *

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