Motion Planning Software Speeds Vehicle CT Scanning Process to Inspect Joining Quality

Realtime Robotics, supplier of collision-free autonomous motion planning for industrial robots, recently announced that it has been named an official supplier for the BMW Group.

The designation means that the company’s innovative robot motion planning and control software, RapidPlan, can be utilized within the BMW Group to help improve the speed and efficiency of industrial robot programming, deployment and control. The software’s ability to help teams to easily visualize, prioritize and simulate robot path plans can speed the implementation of industrial automation in a variety of ways.

3D Computer Tomography Scanning of Automobiles

Realtime Robotics RapidPlan helped to improve the process around the 3D computer tomography scanning of automobiles, which is done to assure the quality of assorted joinings. The cell was designed to use robots to x-ray vehicles and identify any issues, but it was a time-consuming process to complete for even a single automobile. The robots used needed to be programmed with the exact geographies of the vehicles they’d be working around and scanning. Making it even more difficult, each vehicle model was different, meaning robot programming reuse was limited.

Realtime Robotics’ technology improved how the robots in this operation are programmed. By autonomously generating and choreographing all robot movements and making them collision-free, the team could immediately understand which scan points were easily reachable and which ones needed direct attention.

With RapidPlan in place, customers are able to improve the efficiency of their scanning operation, automating the robot movements and optimizing the scan points, which enables technicians to concentrate their efforts on setting up and validating the remaining tough-to-reach areas, instead of wasting time reviewing and validating them all.

“Manual motion planning in multi-robot systems is prohibitively expensive for all but the largest lot sizes and longest-lived products,” said Peter Howard, CEO at Realtime Robotics. “Making it easy for manufacturers to create collision-free path plans by simply ‘pointing and clicking’ can save organizations weeks to months of programming time.”