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Professional Solutions for Industrial Scanning

Due to rapidly changing situations concerning available equipment and workflow in industrial environments, it is a difficult task to develop industrial laser scanning solutions. However, RIEGL, dedicated to designing, developing and producing the best possible laser sensors for various - sometimes really singular and complex – applications is ready to meet that challenge.
By designing the LMS-Z210ii-S in 2008 a rugged sensor especially apt for acquisition of high-quality 3D images in industrial application was introduced and continuously further developed and successfully implemented since. 

Yet, RIEGL's state-of-the-art "V-Line" technology has not been used for industrial scanning purposes so far.
Now, in analogy to the design of the RIEGL LMS-Z210ii-S, the industrial laser scanner of the VZ-Line is protected with a climate-controlled housing, power supply and data interfaces are provided via industrial standard HARTING connectors and supply cables. RiVLiB, a software library developed for V-Line instruments allows seamless integration in automated industrial data acquisition and control systems.
The new scanner system going by the name of RIEGL VZ-400-S with a maximum operating range of 500m is capable of high-speed data acquisition for applications like automatic stockpile surveillance, automatization of stackers and reclaimers, slope angle control, process automation and autonomous navigation.

Offering the respective software solution for the typical use of our instruments is a very important matter for us. Especially for the main application of our industrial scanner series VZ, that is, monitoring, RIEGL's software team has worked out the software RiMonitor.  
Harald Becker, Software Engineer at RIEGL LMS, describes the main goal of data handling and the most crucial tools, “RiMONITOR offers a sound basis for monitoring solutions to be seamlessly integrated into large scale industrial installations or as a stand-alone system connected to a control center. The user defines the parameters for operation of the scanner, e.g. field of view, scan resolution, and time interval or sequences for logging consecutive scans. Additionally the system can be fed with data of sensors like GNSS, IMU, and temperature sensors. The acquired sensor data and scan data is continuously pre-processed and analyzed. By defining application-specific parameters, e.g., the thresholds for firing alarms, the user can optimally adjust the program to his requirements. Status notification and online view are provided to the external system, namely the server, the operator’s working station or the control room. Via configuration and logging port data is additionally provided for a Web/Telnet Client.”

In a first application the new monitoring software was calculating the derivation of changes in hillsides by rasterizing the point cloud data. The resulting compact surface model is further analyzed to determine changes in volumes. This way, tendencies in volume can be recognized immediately and serve as a basis for raising early alarms. In case the pre-defined mark is passed, RiMonitor reacts by sending short messages or e-mails, by activating electronic warning alarms, a horn, warning lights, or other chosen means of alarm.

While preparing RiMonitor, our software designers considered the special conditions and requirements of industrial applications. As a result of their efforts, the software now requires only a moderate computer hardware configuration, thus it can be run on nearly every state-of-the-art PC or industrial embedded computer. In order to further adjust the program to the specific needs of new applications, the software architecture is modular with well-defined and well-documented internal interfaces. So with just an affordable effort and little time you can easily add additional modules on an as-needed-basis. For more details please check our datasheet RiMonitor.