Supervised autonomous robotic system for complex surface inspection and processing

A system for performing surface processing on a three-dimensional object in a work environment comprising:

• one or more robotic manipulators, each of said robotic manipulators including an end effector having a surface processing tool, a ranging sensor and one or more surface property sensors attached thereto, said one or more robotic manipulators being mounted on a stationary base or mobile base capable of moving on a surface;
• a computer running software for controlling said one or more robotic manipulators, said software comprising:
• a surface property analyzer, for processing surface properties sensor data before and after the processing point of said surface processing tool to classify the current state of said surface;
• a surface model for storage of the geometry of said surface and said current state of said surface, wherein the software is adapted to generate the surface model by refining a three-dimensional base model by the surface property analyzer performing a surface scan of said three-dimensional object and augmenting said base model with range data and surface property data obtained from said scan;
• a surface process planner for planning a sequence of processing actions to be carried out by said processing tool based on an observed state of said surface stored in said surface model, wherein the surface process planner is adapted to create a temporal sequence of states of said one or more robotic manipulators comprising a set of positions and poses to maximize processing of said surface of said three-dimensional object while avoiding a collision between said three-dimensional object and said robotic manipulators;
• a surface process modulator for modifying said planned sequence of processing actions based on real-time feedback from said ranging sensor and said one or more surface property sensors;
• and
• a surface coverage planner, for planning movements and poses of said one or more robotic manipulators to maximize coverage of said surface;
• wherein said one or more robotic manipulators each includes one or more relative position sensors for measuring the three-dimensional position and orientation of the end effector for each of said robotic manipulators relative to a work area to minimize pose error due to relative motion between optical based positioning and each of said robotic manipulators.