Projects in Focus | Materials, Design and Manufacturing Facility (MDMF) (CWB)

Examples of MDMF Projects

Automatic Flaws Inspection System for Laser-cutting Plywood Board	The purpose of this project is to automate the detection process of natural and manufacturing flaws before/after laser cutting a plywood board. Currently the inspection of the plywood boards is done by human because of the complexity of the materials texture and its complicated flaws' categories. As such, the inspection efficiency is low and the cost is high. This project aims to develop an automated digitized visual inspection system to replace the human-based inspection process.
Automatic Robot Cutter for Underground Drainage Pipes Repairing in Hong Kong	This project aims to develop an automatic robot cutter that can cut the lateral connection branch opening during underground drainage pipe repairing in Hong Kong. The developed robot cutter will be able to work for underground drainage pipes of diameter from 900 to 1300mm, which now cannot be handled by commercially available robot cutter. Unmanned operation can also assure a safe workplace for the industrial practitioners.
Robotcop	The height of the robotcop 1.6m tall and is made of aluminum. Its upper torso is retractable so that it can be transported in mini-van. An LCD monitor for display is mounted in front of the upper torso for displaying videos and images captured by the camera inside the head. Wirless LAN configuration is used for the control and audio/video operation.
Shaking Platform	The system consists of a steel platform of size 3m x 3m. It is controlled by computer to move in a x-y horizontal direction in accordance with the programmed path. It has a maximum loading of 2000Kg and can move at an acceleration of 0.3m/sec 2 with a frequency range of 0.2 Hz to 1 Hz.
Full Body Scanner	The scanner is used to capture the three dimensional body images with high resolution (tenths of microns) for garment industries. It has 12 laser scanning modules in two rings for profile scanning. Each scanning module has a vertical travel of 1 meter.
Feather Sorter	The feather sorter is used to sort feathers of different features for the shuttlecock manufacturing industry. It has a turning table, an image processing system and a robotic arm, which selects feather into the bin matrix according to their degree of curvature. The cycle time is 5 seconds and the maximum throughput of the system is 720pc/min.
Monitoring of underwater blasting at Shum Tseng	The monitoring system has a number of hydrophones and application oriented software wave to measure / record the peak pressure generated from the underwater blasts to check if the pressure was below the calculated risk level. The system can measure the pressure changes from a blasting source at a distance up to 2 km.
Development of a controller for embroidery machine	MDMF (CWB) has designed and developed a controller to control the embroidery machine more precisely and at higher speed, with less vibration. The task also includes the redesigning the mechanical parts of the machine.
Nano Measurement	MDMF (CWB) has two nano-indenters and an optical 3D profiler to perform nano-measurement on different samples. A large number of materials have been measured by these sophisticated instruments and reports on the detailed analysis were submitted.
Spot Welding Machine	Resistance spot welding (RSW) is one of the most widely used, inexpensive and efficient sheet metal joining methods in manufacturing processes. MDMF (CWB) has designed and developed an advanced controller to control the welding process in a more efficient way.