Electrical and Computer Engineering

Irregular Object Dimensioning System

Advisor: Professor Neal Anderson

Michael BaccariPeter Bian

Michael CoughlinAvi Noy

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Agenda

Statement of Problem

Requirement Specification

System Block Diagram

Proposed MDR Specification

Summary

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Statement of Problem

Background• Sorting facilities’ conveyer belts.

• Components of sort system: Photo eye, laser measuring heads, set of 6 line-scan cameras.

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Statement of Problem (Cont’d)

Background (Cont’d)

• Current issues with the dimensioning component.• “The irregular approval.”

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Requirement Specification

Design• SDP team proposal• Motivation• Approach

Deliverables• A working prototype of the improved dimensioning system.

Included with prototype: Parts list System Schematic Schematic of control box Bill of materials Program code of the user program

• The user program.

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Requirement Specification (Cont’d)

Principle of Operation• Actual implementation will automate following process:

Object is placed on conveyer belt. User starts conveyer belt.

• Cameras take pictures of object, data feeds into control box.

• LMS 200 lasers scan the object, data feeds into control box.

• Control box contains microcontroller chip with dimensioning algorithms.

• Calculated dimensions are sent to computer via USB or network port.

• Dimensions are displayed on user program.

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Requirement Specification (Cont’d)

Design alternatives• Line scan cameras

Pros:High resolution

Cons:Taking picture of object is slow as it has to process

each line of image separately.

• 2-D camerasPros:

High speed.Cons:

Lower resolution.

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Requirement Specification (Cont’d)

User Interface• The user program contains a start button which will start the

process of dimensioning the object.

Input• The irregular object dimensioned by the system.• User places the object on conveyer belt for scanning.

Output• The dimensions for the optimum size box for the irregularly

shaped object. • Dimensioning results will be displayed in a user program

which will stream the information.

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Requirement Specification (Cont’d)

Acceptability Tests

• The standard irregular approval test is met.

• The time needed to calculate the dimensions must be faster than the time it takes for the object to move from the dimensioning system to the side cameras.

• The system must be able to handle dimensioning of multiple objects at a constant rate for a period of time to be determined without crashing or timeouts.

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Requirement Specification (Cont’d)

“The Irregular Approval”

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Requirement Specification (Cont’d)

Product Cost• Subsystem of a larger tunnel system.

• Components provided by Sick Inc.: Two (master and slave) LMS 200 laser measuring heads. All required wires for connecting to control box. Two sets of parabolic LED light sources.

• Any modifications we make to the dimensioning system will be accounted for in the cost of the total tunnel system. For example:

Newly proposed cameras. Modified control box.

• The control box, conveyer belt and possibly the cameras will be built using the allotted budget.

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System Block Diagram

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Proposed MDR Specification

Current hardware given from Sick Inc. operating.

Complete research on:• Multiplexing of lasers and newly added cameras.• Mathematical algorithms.• Microcontroller chips.

Schematic for control box.

Working conveyer belt.

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Summary

Design• Multiplex the laser system and cameras.• Mathematical algorithms for dimensioning.• Integrated control box.

Motivation• Increase the accuracy for dimensioning irregular objects.• Obtain “irregular approval.”

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Comments / Questions?