Inspection workcell
| DWPI Title: Inspection workcell used for inspecting pre-fabricated portions, has portion trays that include high-precision registration surface used for mounting inspection portions, and permits inspection of all surfaces of inspection portions |
| Abstract: An inspection workcell includes an equipment rack for securing one or more part trays comprising inspection parts, one or more inspection stations for inspecting the inspection parts, and a robotic manipulator for transporting the one or more part trays from the equipment rack to the one or more inspection stations. |
| Use: Inspection workcell used for inspecting pre-fabricated portions. |
| Advantage: The robot manipulator quickly transports portions to high-fidelity laser scanners, hardness testers, and roughness testers to record inspection data for post-processing and portion validation using pre-programmed paths. The robot-mounting arrangement allows different types of robots to be quickly installed/removed to meet varying payload and accuracy requirements. The inspection workcell prevents the need to remount portions between inspections, which increases the inspection data accuracy, and provides consistency of the geometric dataset alignment between inspections by accurately mounting the inspection portions on registration surfaces. The inspection workcell increases inspection throughput by doubling the number of available robotic manipulators and inspection stations by placing workcells side-by-side, such as workcell with a shared equipment rack. |
| Novelty: The workcell (10) has an equipment rack (22,26) for securing portion trays (28) having inspection portions. The inspection stations (24) are used for inspecting the inspection portions. A robotic manipulator is used for transporting the portion trays from the equipment rack to the inspection stations. Each of the portion trays include a high-precision registration surface that is used for mounting the inspection portions. The registration surface permits inspection of all surfaces of the inspection portions. The inspection stations is securable in the equipment rack or a second equipment rack. The six separate equipment racks are arranged in a hexagonal-shaped configuration around the robotic manipulator. A set of separate equipment racks are arranged in a shaped configuration around the robotic manipulator. |
| Filed: 10/23/2018 |
| Application Number: US16167759A |
| Tech ID: SD 14272.1 |
| This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. DE-NA0003525 awarded by the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. The Government has certain rights in the invention. |
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