Non-contact method and system for controlling an industrial automation machine
AssigneeLiberty Reach Inc.
InventorG. Neil Haven
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and system are provided for controlling an industrial automation machine using non-contact (virtual) position encoding. The system and method can be used to determine the position of an object under assembly on a conveyor system without mechanical coupling to a line or drive mechanism of the line.
Claims23
A non-contact method of controlling an industrial automation machine configured to accept input from a mechanical position encoder to perform an industrial task on an inanimate object moving on a conveyor, the method comprising:
- providing at least one 3D or depth sensor at a vision station located in an industrial environment, each sensor having a field of view at the vision station to obtain a stream of point cloud data representative of a surface shape of the object moving along or about an axis in the vision station within its field of view wherein the step of providing provides continuous, non-contact, position and velocity measurements of the moving object;
- real time tracking the motion of the object within the vision station based on each stream of point cloud data utilizing a continuously iterated, cloud-based, pose estimation algorithm to process each stream of point cloud data in real time to obtain at least one continuous stream of estimated poses, wherein the step of tracking includes the step of processing the at least one continuation stream of estimated poses in real time to obtain kinematic state estimates of the object and processing the kinematic state estimates in real time to obtain an evolution of the state of the object;
- and
- providing a signal generator configured to be in direct communication with the industrial automation machine to generate a stream of command signals based on the evolution of the state of the object to control the machine via low-latency signaling so that the machine accurately performs the industrial task at at least one accurate location on the moving object wherein the stream of command signals are indicative of the position and velocity of the moving object and are based on the continuous, non-contact position and velocity measurements of the moving object.
A non-contact system for controlling an industrial automation machine configured to accept input from a mechanical position encoder to perform an industrial task on an inanimate object moving on a conveyor, the system comprising:
- at least one 3D or depth sensor, each sensor having a field of view at a vision station to obtain a stream of point cloud data representative of a surface shape of the object moving along or about an axis in the vision station within its field of view wherein the at least one 3D or depth sensor provides continuous, non-contact, position and velocity measurements of the moving object;
- a tracker to track the motion of the object within the vision station as a function of time based on each stream of point cloud data utilizing a continuously iterated, cloud-based, pose estimation algorithm to obtain at least one continuous stream of estimated poses, a kinematic estimator to process each stream of estimated poses in real time to obtain kinematic state estimates of the object and a kinematic evolution model to process the kinetic state estimates in reals time to obtain an evolution of the state of the object;
- and
- a signal generator configured to be in direct communication with the industrial automation machine to generate a stream of command signals based on the evolution of the state of the object to control the machine via low-latency signaling so that the machine accurately performs the industrial task at at least accurate location on the moving object wherein the stream of command signals are indicative of the position and velocity of the moving object and are based on the continuous, non-contact position and velocity measurements of the moving object.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.