Abstract
The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background informa tion supplied by the inventors: “An aircraft having a dirty or unsmooth surface consumes substantially more fuel than a clean, polished aircraft. Hence, it is i mportant that aircraft be maintained in a clean and polished condition. Typicall y, aircraft are cleaned and polished using a cleaning machine provided with an o perator-controlled crane arm capable of reaching all parts of a large aircraft t o be cleaned, and a cleaning head attached at a distal end of the arm for cleani ng and polishing the aircraft. U.S. Pat. No. 5,833,762 suggests how an operator may park an aircraft cleaning robot in relation to reference marks in a parking field, and different predetermined motion programs of the robot arm, defined by consecutive sets of robot arm joint positions, may be selected based on the robo t’s position relative to the reference marks. The robot arm is calibrated by ass ociating sets of robot arm joint positions with points in space which are obtain ed using a 3D laser scanner.
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