To Örebro University

High accuracy 3D laser measurment systems are used in applications like inspection and reverse engineering (RE). With automatic RE in mind, we have designed and built a system that is based on a laser profile scanner mounted on a standard industrial robot with a turntable. This paper is concerned with the relatively complex accuracy issues of such a system. The different parts of the system are analyzed individually and a brief discussion of how they interact is given. Finally a detailed analysis of the scanner head along with experimental results is presented.

Laser scanners in combination with accurate orientation devices are often used in Geometric Reverse Engineering (GRE) to measure point data. The industrial robot as a device for orientation has relatively low accuracy but the advantage of being numerically controlled, fast, and flexible and it is therefore of interest to investigate if it can be used in this application. We have built a measuring system based on a laser profile scanner mounted on an industrial robot. In this paper we present results from practical tests based on point data. We also show how data from laser profiles can be used to increase accuracy in some cases. Finally we propose a new method for plane segmentation using laser profiles.