Gm Global Technolgoy Operations, Inc.

UniversitÈ Laval

Neil David McKay

James W Wells

Dalong Gao

Pei-chung Wang

Roland J Menassa

Bradley J Blaski

Clement M Gosselin

Thierry Laliberte

Matthew J Reiland

Simon Foucault

Boris Mayer-St-Onge

Alexandre Lecours

Seog-Chan Oh

Marc-Antoine Lacasse

David E Milburn

Linda Y Harkenrider

Stephane Francois

An autonomous vehicle guidance system enables a partially assembled battery-electric vehicle (BEV) to be guided through an assembly process with the temporary addition of a sensor skid. The partially assembled BEV includes a vehicle body, a vehicle controller coupled to the vehicle body, a battery electrically coupled to the vehicle controller, a sensor skid configured to be coupled under the vehicle body of the BEV. The sensor skid is configured to guide the BEV through an assembly process. The sensor skid includes a skid body configured to be coupled under the vehicle body of the BEV and a plurality of sensors coupled to the skid body. The sensor skid includes a skid controller in communication with the sensors and the vehicle controller. The skid controller is coupled to the sensor skid.

Autonomous vehicle guidance system and method

The present disclosure relates to methods by which a warped workpiece is reconfigured in a pre-determined manner to reduce a separation between the warped workpiece and a joining workpiece. The warped workpiece is reformed/reshaped, prior to joining, by softening material of the warped workpiece through application of a predetermined amount of energy at or near warping and using a directional force applied to a first surface of the warped workpiece, thus reducing a separation space at a joining interface of the warped workpiece and joining workpiece.

Systems and methods for joining a warped workpiece to another workpiece

A method for classifying a known object in a field of view of a digital camera includes developing a plurality of classifier feature vectors, each classifier feature vector associated with one of a plurality of facet viewing angles of the known object. The digital camera captures an image in a field of view including the known object and an image feature vector is generated based upon said captured image. The image feature vector is compared with each of the plurality of classifier feature vectors and one of the plurality of classifier feature vectors that most closely corresponds to the image feature vector is selected. A pose of the known object relative to the digital camera is determined based upon the selected classifier feature vector.

Method for classifying a known object in a field of view of a camera

A system includes a first camera defining a first camera coordinate system (C) and configured to acquire a first image of a scene. A range sensor is spaced a first distance from the first camera and defines a range sensor coordinate system (R). A controller is operatively connected to the first camera and range sensor. The controller has a processor and a tangible, non-transitory memory device on which is recorded instructions for executing a method for obtaining a two-dimensional region of interest (u*, v*) in the first image, which is a two-dimensional intensity image. The first image is represented by a plurality of first points (u, v) in a first image plane. The controller is configured to acquire a range image of the scene with the range sensor. The range image is represented by a plurality of second points (u, v, d) in a second image plane.

System and method for selecting a two-dimensional region of interest using a range sensor

A robotic charging station for charging a battery of an electric vehicle includes a base plate, a riser coupled with the base plate and extending substantially transverse to the base plate, and a robotic arm. The robotic arm extends from the riser and supports an end effector. The end effector includes a plurality of electrical contacts configured to couple with a receptacle disposed on the electric vehicle. The robotic arm is configured to move the end effector in three degrees of motion.

Robotically operated vehicle charging station

A system for creating an image with a wide dynamic range includes an imaging unit, a processing unit and a control unit operatively connected to each other. The imaging unit is configured to acquire a plurality of images of a scene at respective exposure times such that each of the respective exposure times are different from one another. The images are each represented by a set of pixels, each defining a respective pixel intensity. The processing unit is configured to combine the plurality of images to produce a combined image based at least in part on weighting factors assigned to each pixel and a mapping graph.

System and method for creating an image with a wide dynamic range

Growing community of inventors

Chelsea, MI, United States of America

Neil David McKay