Robotic laser ablation system with programmatic surface-fit motion path generation

A method that facilitates robotic laser ablation, the method comprising:

• receiving an input image of a workpiece from a camera mounted to an end effector of a robot, the end effector being configured to move in a plurality of degrees of freedom and the camera being configured to capture light and depth information in the input image of the workpiece;
• segmenting the input image to produce an image segment that depicts at least a portion of the workpiece;
• applying a surface-fitting algorithm to generate a polynomial surface that is fit to the surface in the image segment;
• computing a set of surface normal vectors across the polynomial surface and generating a set of waypoints offset from the polynomial surface by an offset length;
• programmatically generating a motion path linking a plurality of the waypoints of the set of waypoints;
• and
• performing, using laser componentry mounted to the end effector of the robot, laser ablation of the surface of the portion of the workpiece based on the motion path.

A robotic laser ablation system, comprising:

• a robot configured to move an end effector in a plurality of degrees of freedom;
• laser componentry mounted to the end effector, the laser componentry including a laser source and/or a laser guiding optical element;
• a camera mounted to the end effector, the camera being configured to capture an input image of a workpiece, the input image including color information and depth information for each of a plurality of pixels in the input image;
• processing circuitry and associated memory storing instructions that when executed cause the processing circuitry to:
• receive the input image;
• segment the input image to generate a segmented image of at least a portion of the workpiece, at least in part by:
• identifying a seed point in the input image, wherein the identifying of the seed point is accomplished at least in part by:
• obtaining user selection of the seed point via a graphical user-interface (GUI);
• or
• programmatic determination of the seed point based on a determination criterion;
• implementing a segmentation algorithm using the seed point to identify a region of pixels in the input image that depicts a surface of the portion of the workpiece, each pixel in the region having associated two-dimensional coordinates in the input image and an associated depth coordinate from the camera to the surface;
• apply a surface-fitting algorithm to generate a polynomial surface that is fit to the surface in the segmented image;
• compute a set of surface normal vectors across the polynomial surface and generate a set of waypoints offset from the polynomial surface by an offset length of the surface normal vectors;
• define two-dimensional frames that contain respective subsets of the waypoints;
• programmatically generate a motion path linking the waypoints, wherein the subsets of the waypoints in each two-dimensional frame are linked by subpaths of the motion path, wherein the motion path is generated in camera space, the processing circuitry further being configured to convert the motion path to a frame of reference of the robot;
• perform laser ablation of the surface of the portion of the workpiece by:
• moving the robot to cause the laser componentry mounted on the end effector to travel along the converted motion path;
• and
• intermittently or continuously energizing the laser source as the laser componentry travels along the converted motion path.