Inspection Path Planning of Complex Surface Based on One-Step Inverse Approach and Curvature-Oriented Point Distribution

Abstract

Polyhedral surface has become a popular representation for computer-aided design, manufacturing, and inspection systems due to its simplicity for geometric computation and product shape communication. However, little attempts have been made in relation to inspection planning strategy of freeform surface-based polyhedral models. The intention of the work presented in this article attempts to demonstrate the efficiency and flexibility of a measurement planning method for the inspection of components with polyhedral surface representations. Based on the one-step inverse method, the triangular mesh surface can be flattened onto a plane, which makes it possible to select sampling points and to generate inspection paths in a 2-D parametric domain. Subsequently, a curvature-oriented point distribution strategy is proposed for measurement path generation. Finally, all these 2-D sample points are inverse-mapped onto the original mesh surface. The advantage of this approach is that it reduces complex intersection operations in the 3-D space and strikes a balance between accuracy and efficiency. The effectivity and feasibility of the proposed method are verified by simulation experiments.