Patent ID: 11961305
Assignee: THE BOEING COMPANY
Field: Transport (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  G | IPC B  G

Claim 15:
16. A system comprising:
a motorized motion platform comprising a frame;
a scanner comprising a one-dimensional sensor array supported by the frame; and
a computer system communicatively coupled to receive sensor data from the one-dimensional sensor array and send control signals for controlling movement of the motorized motion platform, the computer system being configured to perform operations comprising:
(a) controlling the motorized motion platform to move the scanner across a surface of a target object from a starting location to an ending location along a path;
(b) acquiring successive sets of sensor data at a known capture rate as the scanner moves along the path during operation (a);
(c) converting the successive sets of sensor data to respective scan strips of scan image data;
(d) constructing successive scan images from respective sequences of scan strips converted from sensor data acquired as the scanner moves along the path during operation (a);
(e) filtering the successive scan images to isolate a feature of a specific type using filter threshold values for depth and intensity which are associated with the feature, wherein the path along which the scanner moves during operation (a) is adjusted based on results of the filtering;
(f) finding feature points in respective pairs of successive scan images;
(g) determining which feature points found in operation (f) are common feature points in the respective pairs of successive scan images;
(h) computing pixel position differences between respective positions of common feature points in the respective pairs of successive scan images;
(i) computing respective scanner displacements by multiplying the respective pixel position differences computed in operation (h) by a scaling factor representing a distance traveled by the scanner per scan strip; and
(j) computing coordinates of successive positions of points on respective portions of the surface of the target object corresponding to the successive scan images based on the respective scanner displacements.