Scan&Sand™ in high-quality, complex, skilled sanding and finishing operations

03 Solution

Scan&Sand™, as the name implies, has a perfect fit for surface sanding and finishing, a prime example of a skilled operation that takes years, and not weeks to master, and like many other skilled professions, it is running dangerously short of the master practitioners needed. Typical tolerances for a well-executed job can be around a millimeter or even sub-millimeter. At this point the skill of humans starts to rapidly diminish, we’re just not made to detect such fine tolerances and a robot with a high-quality vision-guided robotics system can go way below millimeter accuracy.

Scan&Sand™ is a combination of innovative technologies that can be delivered as per a customer’s needs. Graymatter Robotics’ core competence is developing smart robotic cells that use AI to enable robots to perform complex tasks that often comprise a large element of tactile ability, the sorts of tasks tradesmen spend years acquiring. A full Scan&Sand™ robot cell comprises a range of elements including: 

• Very high-quality machine vision camera
• AI algorithms for 3D Data processing
• Tool and Robot trajectory generation
• AI algorithms for learning the sanding skills
• Intuitive operator GUI 

The system is autonomous and does not rely on 3D CAD models to carry out its tasks. A job is presented to the Scan&Sand™ system, it makes multiple captures to build a detailed view of the object in 3D, then it is ready to get to work - all within a few short minutes. It has machine learning at its core and with every job it builds on its knowledge about how to best carry out the work efficiently and to the highest quality.

Scan&Sand™ can cope with any object that is within the robot’s reach and regardless of angular or contoured surfaces happily carries out its high-precision work. This is where the robot-mounted Zivid 2 3D camera comes to the fore. The robot vision camera can go anywhere the robot arm can go and capture very high-quality 3D point clouds from any position, any angle which was essential for this particular application.

Graymatter has put a lot of thought into who their customer base is and how they operate, and the typical resources they have at their disposal. The system can be set up and operated by anyone on the shop floor and needs no specialist engineering skills or lengthy training, they can be operating the system soon after they’ve met it. It considers high-mix workloads of varying sizes and shapes, and it treats each part as a new individual task.

They have also understood the business model of the enterprises they are catering to with a monthly subscription payment model so there’s no headache about having to invest large CAPEX costs ahead of seeing the results and benefits. With Scan&Sand™, you are more productive and enjoy better efficiencies right from the get-go. The Scan&Sand™ system is designed to be accessible to most who need it, but right now the biggest interest is coming from industries that have a very high requirement for a superb finish at very fine tolerances that are repeatable, and reliable. Right now, aerospace, defense, specialty vehicles are among those who are using Scan&Sand™ in day-to-day productions.

04 Result

Scan&Sand™ offers repeatable superb quality sanding with consistent results and close to no dust and negligible waste and can do this up to four times faster than a human tradesman carrying out similar work. As their customer base has been looking for, the solution also provides the highest quality finished goods, no returns, and no waste. We’re delighted that Zivid 2 has helped them achieve this.