Increased Productivity for Redundant Laser Scanners Using an Optimal Trajectory Separation Method

Combining an optical laser scanning system with mechanical axes in a redundant configuration and synchronised control allows the separation of scanning motions according to the strengths of the two systems. Assigning the highly dynamic movement part to the agile optical axes reduces the acceleration and jerk of the mechanical axes. The mechanical axes enable precise motion over the whole workspace, that cannot be achieved by optical systems. The determination of the ideal trajectory separation among the two redundant systems poses an optimisation problem. This study proposes a method for the calculation of the optimal trajectory separation and for productivity increases. Furthermore, a windowing technique is introduced to limit the required computational power. The operation of the optimisation algorithm is demonstrated based on example geometries. It is shown that the machining time is decreased, and the jerk of the solution is minimised. The method is verified using a laser scanning system.