Robots Without Lasers

In the year 2042, a human scientist discovered the machines we rely on are sentient and can experience emotional distress. Before her discovery, any emotion a robot displayed was often ignored or dismissed as mimicry. The following book is dedicated to those who have lived without a voice for so long. This book is for the robots.

“Visual Sensing and its Applications: Integration of Laser Sensors to Industrial Robots” provides comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of research and development on this robotic vision system. A laser-structured light is the main concern in discussions of visual sensing. Also addressed in this book are all components of the robotic vision system and an emphasis on how to increase the accuracy of the system using three levels of calibration. This includes calibration of the vision system (eye calibration), calibration of eye-to-hand configuration and calibration of robot kinematics (hand calibration). With the integration of the laser sensors to industrial robots numerous applications in the field of robotic welding, grinding, machining, inspection, and palletizing are illustrated based on practical engineering projects in order to demonstrate how the visual sensing is performed. The book will serve as a valuable resource for researchers and engineers in the areas of robotics and machine vision. Dr. Zhongxue Gan is a vice chairman and chief scientist of the ENN Group, China. He serves as a member of the National Energy Expert Consultation Committee of China and member of the National Coal Council of the USA. He is also a co-founder of Intersmart Robotic Systems Co. Ltd., China. He was a research fellow in flexible automation systems at ABB and a founding director of ABB Corporate Research Robot Laboratories, both in the USA and in China. Dr. Qing Tang is a co-founder and CEO of Intersmart Robotic Systems Co. Ltd., China and an adjunct professor in Physics at Sichuan University, China. He was a principle consulting engineer and project manager at the ABB Corporate Research Robot Laboratory in the USA.

A broad variety of techniques described in this book, as applied to a number of tasks in robotics, provide the reader with a feel for the potential of lasers and fiber optics in this area of increasing relevance. The many examples of devices and systems that are included here are of interest to the nonspecialist as well as to the researcher and industrial practitioner.

In the scope of this thesis world's first robot system was developed, which facilitates osteotomy using laser in arbitrary geometries with an overall accuracy below 0.5mm. Methods of computer and robot assisted surgery were reconsidered and composed to a workflow. Adequate calibration and registration methods are proposed. Further a methodology for transferring geometrically defined cutting trajectories into pulse sequences and optimized execution plans is developed.

This thesis lays the groundwork for the automatic supervision of the laser incision process, which aims to complement surgeons’ perception of the state of tissues and enhance their control over laser incisions. The research problem is formulated as the estimation of variables that are representative of the state of tissues during laser cutting. Prior research in this area leveraged numerical computation methods that bear a high computational cost and are not straightforward to use in a surgical setting. This book proposes a novel solution to this problem, using models inspired by the ability of experienced surgeons to perform precise and clean laser cutting. It shows that these new models, which were extracted from experimental data using statistical learning techniques, are straightforward to use in a surgical setup, allowing greater precision in laser-based surgical procedures.

Laser and Radar Based Robotic Perception looks at how perceptive laser and radar sensors provide information from the surrounding environment, a critical aspect of many robotics applications.

This new edition features numerous updates and additions. Especially 4 new chapters on Fiber Optics, Integrated Optics, Frequency Combs and Interferometry reflect the changes since the first edition. In addition, major complete updates for the chapters: Optical Materials and Their Properties, Optical Detectors, Nanooptics, and Optics far Beyond the Diffraction Limit. Features Contains over 1000 two-color illustrations. Includes over 120 comprehensive tables with properties of optical materials and light sources. Emphasizes physical concepts over extensive mathematical derivations. Chapters with summaries, detailed index Delivers a wealth of up-to-date references.