Automated Trajectory Generation for Region of Interest Computed Tomography using Industrial Robots

• Published in: E-journal of Nondestructive Testing Vol. 28; no. 3
• Main Authors: Bliedtner, Katharina, Dedyaeva, Polina, Krohne, Kristen, Herold, Frank
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.03.2023
• ISSN: 1435-4934; 1435-4934
• DOI: 10.58286/27711

Computed Tomography (CT) is widely used as reference non-destructive testing method (NDT method) to analyze the inner structure of safety-critical parts e.g., in automotive or aerospace industry. Especially additive manufactured (AM) components often with their bionic design will lead to very complex structured parts, which are light weighted and thus will reduce the CO2 emission of cars or airplanes respectively. For metallic AM components produced in a powder bed fusion process pores, inclusions or lack-of-fusion errors (LoF) may occur typically. The latter one arises if powder could not be melted properly, i.e., it is an inclusion of loose powder inside the part. Such LoF are very low in contrast compared to the surrounding solid material and therefore harder to detect the smaller they are and the thicker the penetrated material is. Monitoring systems integrated in the 3D-Printer help to detect indications of where a defect could have occurred. Exactly on each of these predefined positions the CT-System will do a region-of-interest scan (ROI scan). In this study we are using an industrial robot as manipulator of the component. Its dedicated trajectory using only the optimal projection directions of the current ROI is derived by using our newly developed Digital Twin containing the robot, the AM component and the X-Ray imaging chain. We will show the integration of an automated trajectory planning into a robotic CT system for ROI scans of complex AM parts.