Patent ID: 11865852
Assignee: MACDONALD, DETTWILER AND ASSOCIATES CORPORATION
Field: Handling (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  G | IPC B

Claim 11:
12. A system for applying a livery image to the surface of an object, comprising:
a printing module mounted on a motion platform and configured to apply a plurality of adjacent swaths of a print material to form an image on a surface, the printing module including one or more tanks for storing the print material and a plurality of printing heads for applying the print material;
a local sensing suite configured to acquire one or more images of the surface and to measure the motion of the printing module relative to the surface;
one or more global motion tracking devices configured for measuring the pose of the printing module, the motion platform, and the surface of the object;
a real-time processor being connected to the printing module, the motion platform, the local sensing suite, and the global motion tracking devices, wherein the real-time processor is programmed with instructions for computing a plurality of motion correcting commands for the motion platform to maintain a desired position, orientation, and velocity of the printing module relative to the surface by the steps of:
acquiring data from one or more range sensors which measure a distance to said surface;
generating a 3D representation of said surface from the acquired data;
computing a position, orientation, and velocity of said printing module relative to said 3D representation of the surface;
fusing the pose measurements of the printing module from one or more global motion tracking devices and said position, orientation, and velocity estimation from said range data and computing a filtered position, orientation, and velocity of said printing module relative to said surface;
computing an error between the filtered values and the desired values of the position, orientation, and velocity of said printing module relative to said surface; and
applying a plurality of motion correcting commands to the motion platform to correct said error in the position, orientation, and velocity of the printing module relative to said surface; and
an executive computer interfaced with the real-time processor.