Computer Vision Methods for Autonomous Remote Sizing in Manufacturing

In the grand scheme of Industry 4.0, the employment of modern intelligent digital technology has been utilised to facilitate industrial production, leveraging automation to elevate production efficiency. Building upon this, Industry 5.0 takes a step forward, accentuating the concept of human-machine symbiosis. It directs its focus on augmenting human performance within the industry, mitigating errors made by workers, and honing the overarching performance of human-machine systems. Across various manufacturing domains, an escalating demand for this level of automation has been noticed. One such area is the speciality steel industry, whose tasks are the primary consideration of this dissertation. Speciality steel rolling forms the backbone of industrial sectors as diverse as aerospace and oil and gas. The key to the sustained survival of steel plants hinges on the digitalisation of the rolling process. Despite this, a significant number of steel rolling plants in the present day continue to place a heavy reliance on human operators to oversee and regulate the manufacturing process. With a view to securing the safety of workers in high-risk factory environments and optimising the control of steel production, this dissertation puts forth machine vision approaches. These are aimed at supervising the direction of hot steel sections and remotely gauging their dimensions, both conducted in real-time. This dissertation further contributes a novel image registration approach founded on extrinsic features. This approach is then amalgamated with frequency domain image fusion of optical images. The resultant fused image is designated to evaluate the size of high-quality hot steel sections from a remote standpoint. With the integration of the remote imaging sizing module, operators can stay abreast of the section dimensions in real time. Concurrently, the mill stands can be pre-adjusted to facilitate quality assurance. The efficacy of the developed approaches has been tested over real data, delivering an accuracy rate exceeding 95%. This suggests that the approach not only ensures worker safety but also contributes significantly to the enhancement of production control and efficiency in the speciality steel industry

Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS 1994), volume 1

The AIAA/NASA Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS '94) was originally proposed because of the strong belief that America's problems of global economic competitiveness and job creation and preservation can partly be solved by the use of intelligent robotics, which are also required for human space exploration missions. Individual sessions addressed nuclear industry, agile manufacturing, security/building monitoring, on-orbit applications, vision and sensing technologies, situated control and low-level control, robotic systems architecture, environmental restoration and waste management, robotic remanufacturing, and healthcare applications

Fast algorithms for material specific process chain design and analysis in metal forming - final report DFG Priority Programme SPP 1204

The book summarises the results of the DFG-funded coordinated priority programme \"Fast Algorithms for Material Specific Process Chain Design and Analysis in Metal Forming\". In the first part it includes articles which provide a general introduction and overview on the field of process modeling in metal forming. The second part collates the reports from all projects included in the priority programme

Aeronautical engineering: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 109

This bibliography lists 466 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in April 1979

A cumulative index to Aeronautical Engineering: A special bibliography

This publication is a cumulative index to the abstracts contained in NASA SP-7037 (80) through NASA SP-7037 (91) of Aeronautical Engineering: A Special Bibliography. NASA SP-7037 and its supplements have been compiled through the cooperative efforts of the American Institute of Aeronautics (AIAA) and Space Administration (NASA). This cumulative index includes subject, personal author, corporate source, contract, and report number indexes

A cumulative index to a continuing bibliography on aeronautical engineering

This bibliography is a cumulative index to the abstracts contained in NASA-SP-7037(184) through NASA-SP-7037(195) of Aeronautical Engineering: A Continuing Bibliography. NASA SP-7037 and its supplements have been compiled through the cooperative efforts of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This cumulative index includes subject, personal author, corporate source, foreign technology, contract, report number, and accession number indexes

NASA Tech Briefs, July 1991

Topics include: New Product Ideas; NASA TU Services; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery; Fabrication Technology; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences

NASA Tech Briefs, July/August 1988

Topics: New Product Ideas; NASA TU Services; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery; Fabrication Technology; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences

The Application of Mixed Reality Within Civil Nuclear Manufacturing and Operational Environments

This thesis documents the design and application of Mixed Reality (MR) within a nuclear manufacturing cell through the creation of a Digitally Assisted Assembly Cell (DAAC). The DAAC is a proof of concept system, combining full body tracking within a room sized environment and bi-directional feedback mechanism to allow communication between users within the Virtual Environment (VE) and a manufacturing cell. This allows for training, remote assistance, delivery of work instructions, and data capture within a manufacturing cell. The research underpinning the DAAC encompasses four main areas; the nuclear industry, Virtual Reality (VR) and MR technology, MR within manufacturing, and finally the 4 th Industrial Revolution (IR4.0). Using an array of Kinect sensors, the DAAC was designed to capture user movements within a real manufacturing cell, which can be transferred in real time to a VE, creating a digital twin of the real cell. Users can interact with each other via digital assets and laser pointers projected into the cell, accompanied by a built-in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system. This allows for the capture of implicit knowledge from operators within the real manufacturing cell, as well as transfer of that knowledge to future operators. Additionally, users can connect to the VE from anywhere in the world. In this way, experts are able to communicate with the users in the real manufacturing cell and assist with their training. The human tracking data fills an identified gap in the IR4.0 network of Cyber Physical System (CPS), and could allow for future optimisations within manufacturing systems, Material Resource Planning (MRP) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). This project is a demonstration of how MR could prove valuable within nuclear manufacture. The DAAC is designed to be low cost. It is hoped this will allow for its use by groups who have traditionally been priced out of MR technology. This could help Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) close the double digital divide between themselves and larger global corporations. For larger corporations it offers the benefit of being low cost, and, is consequently, easier to roll out across the value chain. Skills developed in one area can also be transferred to others across the internet, as users from one manufacturing cell can watch and communicate with those in another. However, as a proof of concept, the DAAC is at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) five or six and, prior to its wider application, further testing is required to asses and improve the technology. The work was patented in both the UK (S. R EDDISH et al., 2017a), the US (S. R EDDISH et al., 2017b) and China (S. R EDDISH et al., 2017c). The patents are owned by Rolls-Royce and cover the methods of bi-directional feedback from which users can interact from the digital to the real and vice versa. Stephen Reddish Mixed Mode Realities in Nuclear Manufacturing Key words: Mixed Mode Reality, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Nuclear, Manufacture, Digital Twin, Cyber Physical Syste

Aeronautical Engineering: A continuing bibliography with indexes

This bibliography lists 725 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in April 1985