Towards the development of a deposition technology for an automated rail repair system

Abstract

The work presented in this paper explored the use of a laser line scanner to generate robotic deposition paths for the repair portion of an automated rail repair system. Currently surface defects cost the UK around £4 million per annum [1] , with little traceability being available throughout the repair process. This paper proposes a robotic repair system primarily focussed on the development of the deposition system. The deposition system utilised two different deposition strategies, the first extracted the weld prep from the point cloud to generate the deposition paths for the robot and the second measured the height of the previously deposited material and adjusted the generated path. This paper focusses on the use of the two algorithms and the testing completed on a representative geometry, utilising a caulking gun as a reusable material replacement for the additive welding system.