Motion control and data capturing for laser scanning with an industrial robot

Reverse engineering is concerned with the problem of creating computer aided design (CAD) models of real objects by interpreting point data measured from their surfaces. For complex objects, it is important that the measuring device is free to move along arbitrary paths and make its measurements from suitable directions. This paper shows how a standard industrial robot with a laser profile scanner can be used to achieve that freedom. The system is planned to be part of a future automatic system for the Reverse Engineering of unknown objects.