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

Claim 22:
23. 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 controlling the motion of the motion platform to align a plurality of adjacent swaths of a livery image by the steps of:
commanding the motion platform to move the printing module to a region near a first printed swath;
acquiring one or more images of the first printed swath from one or more optical sensors in the local sensing suite;
detecting a plurality of boundaries of the first printed swath from the one or more images of said first printed swath;
computing a shifted path corresponding to a next swath be printed from said detected boundaries;
controlling the motion platform to move the printing module to follow the shifted path to print the next swath; and

an executive computer interfaced with the real-time processor.