Persistent Rapid-Deployment Automation for Shipbuilding and Large-Scale Manufacturing

AMACS™ — Rapidly Deployable Automation for Shipbuilding and Repair

AMACS combines persistent coordinate references, portable robotic deployment, metrology, digital work mapping, and multi-process automation within a common registered workspace.

The platform is being developed to extend automation beyond conventional fixed cells, allowing shipyards to scan, inspect, identify, prepare, repair and verify work across large and changing ship structures.

AMACS™ Concept Visualization — Repair & Modernization Application

AMACS creates a persistent registered manufacturing environment that connects physical reference, metrology, digital geometry and rapidly deployable robotic automation.

AMACS™ for New Fabrication and Repair

AMACS provides the same persistent spatial control environment for both new ship construction and repair. In fabrication, AMACS connects design intent to the actual evolving structure for fit-up, welding, inspection and verification. In repair, AMACS captures the existing as-built condition, defines the work area, guides the required processes and verifies the completed repair.

Different starting points. One persistent control platform.

Instead of treating every robot move, scanner setup or process restart as a completely new setup, AMACS is designed to preserve the relationship between the physical structure and its digital coordinate environment.

AMACS™ Concept Visualization — New Fabrication Application

Establish Control
Acquire the Total Scene
Extend the Registered Environment
Deploy the Process
Perform the Work
Rescan • Validate • Update
Move • Reacquire • Continue

AMACS™ Concept Visualization — New Fabrication Application

Automation That Goes to the Ship

One persistent spatial architecture… AMACS for Robotic Scanning • Inspection • Grinding • Sanding • Surface Preparation • Welding • Machining • Additive & Repair • Automated Verification.

The AMACS Architecture

AMACS Anchor™ — Establish the Physical Truth

AMACS Anchor provides persistent physical reference points associated with the ship, module, structure, fixture or work zone.

Those references provide a repeatable foundation for measurement, registration, verification and downstream automation.

The structure retains its reference even when the equipment does not.

Metrology — Establish and Recover the Digital Environment

Laser trackers, scanners, robotic measurement systems and other compatible metrology technologies locate the physical structure and connect it to the working coordinate system.

AMACS is designed to support initial registration, relocation, re-registration and validation as work progresses.

AMACS Total Scene™ — Extend the Registered Environment

AMACS is being developed to rapidly acquire the surrounding work scene and process large volumes of measured spatial data within the persistent registered environment. Rather than treating each scan as an isolated point cloud, AMACS maintains a continuously updated spatial state of the work area — identifying stable reference geometry, detecting physical change, and maintaining the relationship between the current structure, its registered references and digital model.

Authoritative physical control establishes the reference. Rapid scene acquisition extends that control throughout the active work zone. Subsequent scans allow AMACS to determine what remains stable, what has moved and what must be re validated before automated work continues.

AMACS SmartTrack™ — Bring Automation to the Work

AMACS SmartTrack is ATI’s modular rapid-deployment robotic platform for large and changing work environments.

AMACS SmartTrack extends robotic capability beyond fixed automation cells, positioning compatible process equipment where it creates value and allowing that capability to be re-positioned as production requirements change.

AMACS Gateway™ — Preserve Process Continuity

AMACS Gateway is the coordination layer connecting registration, coordinate transformation, equipment location, process information and validation.

The objective is process continuity.

When automation is moved or work is interrupted, AMACS is designed to help the system recover the registered manufacturing environment, verify the relationship to the work and continue from a known spatial state.

AMACS ShipWelder™

A Persistent Automation Environment for Shipyard Welding

AMACS ShipWelder™ provides the persistent automation environment in which proven welding technologies, robots, sensors and process controls can be deployed across large ship structures without losing spatial control.

1. CREATE CONTROL

AMACS Anchors establish authoritative persistent control tied to the ship structure — not to the robot, scanner, rail, or temporary equipment.

The artifact owns the coordinate environment.

2. EXTEND CONTROL

A high-speed scanner acquires the total work scene. AMACS Gateway / Reference Engine processes that high-density spatial data against the established Anchor-controlled environment.

From that scene, AMACS can identify candidate structural geometry — planes, cylinders, holes, intersections, surface regions, etc. — from which a qualified human selects useful ETargets.

Those environmental references then extend the sparse Anchor network into a much richer registered work environment.

And critically:

AMACS remembers the scene.

When scanning occurs again, AMACS does not simply create another isolated point cloud.

It determines:

what remains unchanged,
what moved,
by how much,
what environmental references remain valid,
what requires requalification,
and how the persistent physical/digital state should be updated.

That is where “Total Scene” becomes strategically important.

3. PERFORM THE ARTIFACT’S WORK

The qualified welding system performs the welding operation within the AMACS registered environment.

The welding system, robot or process equipment performs the work using its established process controls, while AMACS maintains its relationship to the artifact.

Robot moves along the rail.

Robot can be redeployed.

Work can stop.

Equipment can change.

AMACS maintains the relationship to the artifact so that automation can recover, validate and continue.

4. VERIFY — UPDATE — CONTINUE

Rescan after the process.

Compare the changed artifact against the previous AMACS state.

Update the map.

Verify the work.

Authorize the next process.

And loop.

That is the actual AMACS demonstration.

Scan → Register → Map Work → Deploy → Perform Process → Verify → Move → Reacquire → Continue

Rapid Total-Scene Acquisition and Persistent Spatial-State Update

ShipWelder applies this architecture to welding using proven welding equipment, process controls and sensing technologies.

AMACS ShipWelder demonstrates a persistent digital shipbuilding environment in which large-area measurement establishes the current condition of the structure, AMACS maintains the registered reference environment, robotic welding is deployed to the work, and subsequent measurement updates and verifies the physical state as the automation moves through the ship.

Automated Technologies Intl.
Services@ati4d.com

(800) 960-1316