General Electric Company

Thomas M Cipolla

Joseph Leagrand Mundy

William D Barber

Gilbert B Porter, Iii

A versatile robotic gripper is easily and quickly adjusted to grip objects of different geometrical shapes without changing parts and under complete machine control. Opposing jaws have a matrix of axially movable pins each of which is mechanically locked in any axial position. Actuation of an operating mechanism to move the jaws together to grasp an object depresses the pins and they collectively conform to the shape of the object; the jaws retain this shape upon release of the object. A plate is raised to unlock the pins which are returned by springs to a fixed coplanar position.

Adaptive gripping device

Objects of different sizes and shapes are gripped in a monostable manner by an apparatus which has a single pneumatic power source and has interchangeable jaw assemblies attached to an operating mechanism that provides a linear motion to engage the object. The gripping jaws are selected from a set of three basic types of generic jaws, i.e., nose-shaped jaws and vee-shaped jaws for curved surfaces, and rest button jaws for flat surfaces. Various turbine blades, for instance, are grasped by the airfoil and root using different combinations of these jaw types and have a predictable location relative to the gripping device.

Versatile gripping device

A parallax method of wavelength labeling is based on optical triangulation. A complementary color pattern projected onto the surface is characterized by a continuous variation of the power ratio of two wavelength bands, and the profile can be measured at all points in the field of view. Shifts of the wavelength bands on separate detector arrays correspond to profile deviations. A signal processor calculates a normalized signal that is independent of surface reflectivity and roughness variations; the phase shift of this signal yields depth data from which the surface profile can be mapped.

Non-contact measurement of surface profile

High contrast image data is acquired from metal and other hard surfaces with varying roughness and reflectivity on which characters are impressed by vibrapeening or laser marking. The optical scanner applies normal illumination and a linear photodiode array detects light reflected normal to the surface and within a narrow acceptance angle, so that characters appear dark and the background light. The detector signal is preprocessed to remove nonuniform background variations and yield image data which can be fed to conventional character recognition equipment.

Optical character recognition

A parts feeder is disclosed in which randomly grouped parts are stored, oriented and discharged at a uniform rate from a rotating or indexing spacer wheel fed by stepwise movable supply apparatus having the rotating spacer wheel as its frame of reference.

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Ballston Lake, NY, United States of America

Thomas M Cipolla