Automated Inspection and
Reverse Engineering
Tarek M. Sobh, Chris Jaynes,
Mohamed Dekhil, and Tom Henderson
Department of Computer Science
College of Engineering
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
Abstract. CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/Manufacturing) typically involves
the design and manufacture of a mechanical part. The problem of reverse
engineering is to take an existing mechanical part as the point of
departure and to produce a design, and perhaps a manufacturing process,
for the part. We explore a new approach
to reverse engineering and inspection applications. Discrete event dynamic
systems (DEDS) are investigated as a new framework for guiding and controlling
the active exploration and perception of mechanical parts. The dynamic recursive
context for finite state machines (DRFSM) is introduced as a new DEDS tool for
utilizing the recursive nature of the mechanical parts under consideration.
The framework utilizes DRFSM DEDS for constructing a
goal-directed autonomous observer for inspection and reverse engineering purposes.
The developed techniques are then used to aid CAD pre-constructed
models for inspection purposes and/or to develop models for subsequent
manufacturing, thus, closing the sensing modeling
manufacturing inspection loop.
Keywords. Automation, Computer Vision, Control Systems,
Discrete Event Dynamic Systems, Inspection, Intelligent Systems,
Manufacturing, Reverse Engineering, Robotics.