Research of Noncontact Monitoring System Based on 3D Reconstruction Method in Shipbuilding Processes

The 3D reconstruction technology for the rapid measurement and modeling has been used in the automotive, aircraft and other industrial manufacturing sectors because it is capable of solving the accuracy problem. Noncontact measurement technology is extended in the field of industrial construction. However, its application in shipbuilding, renowned for large-size, one-of-a-kind, and high-precision, moves slowly. Necessary improvements both in technology and equipment would have an important impact on its use in the shipbuilding industry, where it is indispensable to obtain 3D models and to collect precise data on complicated steel structures. To acquire efficient noncontact measurement techniques suitable for shipbuilding processes, at least three essential challenges are foreseen to be overcome. The first is the complexity measurement operations demanding professional personnel with special training. The second is the time-consuming measurement processes with multiple steps implying the long occupation of in-house assembly site. The third is the unavailability of quick comparison with the theoretical structure data and to calculate the errors This paper has proposed a noncontact measurement method based on 3D reconstruction technology, followed by preliminary experiments to verify its feasibility. Furthermore, a real-time monitoring system suitable for ship construction, which integrates the rapid measurement, the model construction and the error monitoring, has been presented as well.