Non-destructive Testing Assisted by Six-Axis Manipulator Based on POE Formula

Abstract

At present, aluminum plates are widely used in aerospace, machinery, and other fields because of their light weight, good manufacturability, and strong corrosion resistance. However, during long-term use, defects that will affect the structural strength such as cracks are easy to appear. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct automatic non-destructive testing of large metal plates to determine the location, size, and structural damage to their defects. Compared with manual detection, automated detection has many advantages such as high detection efficiency, high repeatability, strong flexibility, and low labor intensity. Based on the spinor theory, this paper uses the product of exponentials (POE) to model the kinematics of the Aubo-i5 manipulator and obtain the positive kinematics equations, which are compiled by analytic geometry and algebraic methods combined with Paden-Kahan subproblems and matrix theory. The inverse kinematics algorithm of the 6R manipulator is based on this model. An automated non-destructive testing system including a robotic arm and ultrasonic phased array testing equipment was built. At the same time, a robotic arm simulation platform was built based on ROS, and the inverse kinematics algorithm was used to control the robotic arm through the MoveIt!. The angle error can be controlled within 2.5°.