To read this content please select one of the options below:

Research on the integrated manipulator of point cloud measurement and precise cutting for waste nuclear tank

Ruolong Qi (School of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang, China) (The State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China)
Wenfeng Liang (School of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang, China)

Industrial Robot

ISSN: 0143-991x

Article publication date: 20 December 2021

Issue publication date: 1 June 2022

140

Abstract

Purpose

Nuclear waste tanks need to be cut into pieces before they can be safely disposed of, but the cutting process produces a large amount of aerosols with radiation, which is very harmful to the health of the operator. The purpose of this paper is to establish an intelligent strategy for an integrated robot designed for measurement and cutting, which can accurately identify and cut unknown nuclear waste tanks and realize autonomous precise processing.

Design/methodology/approach

A robot system integrating point cloud measurement and plasma cutting is designed in this paper. First, accurate calibration methods for the robot, tool and hand-eye system are established. Second, for eliminating the extremely scattered point cloud caused by metal surface refraction, an omnidirectional octree data structure with 26 vectors is proposed to extract the point cloud model more accurately. Then, a minimum bounding box is calculated for limiting the local area to be cut, the local three-dimensional shape of the nuclear tank is fitted within the bounding box, in which the cutting trajectories and normal vectors are planned accurately.

Findings

The cutting precision is verified by changing the tool into a dial indicator in the simulation and the experiment process. The octree data structure with omnidirectional pointing vectors can effectively improve the filtering accuracy of the scattered point cloud. The point cloud filter algorithm combined with the structure calibration methods for the integrated measurement and processing system can ensure the final machining accuracy of the robot.

Originality/value

Aiming at the problems of large measurement noise interference, complex transformations between coordinate systems and difficult accuracy guarantee, this paper proposes structure calibration, point cloud filtering and point cloud-based planning algorithm, which can greatly improve the reliability and accuracy of the system. Simulation and experiment verify the final cutting accuracy of the whole system.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No.: 61973224), the Young Top Talent of Xingliao Program (Project No.: XLYC2007186) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019M651145).

Citation

Qi, R. and Liang, W. (2022), "Research on the integrated manipulator of point cloud measurement and precise cutting for waste nuclear tank", Industrial Robot, Vol. 49 No. 4, pp. 696-707. https://doi.org/10.1108/IR-07-2021-0142

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles