The Blaser sensor, developed by the Boeing-CMU team for short-range high-precision perception applications, is a small and light-weight 3D laser scanner that is particularly well-suited for confined space applications since it has a camera situated in proximity to its diode. The Blaser is securely mounted on Patient Side Manipulator 1 (PSM1) of the dVRK by means of a custom-designed holder which guarantees that the Blaser is able to move seamlessly with the wrist of the arm. The holder was created in SolidWorks and its CAD model is shown in Figure 1. Registration is performed between the Blaser-frame and the robot-frame which allows for the 2D line scans generated by the Blaser to be stitched into 3D point clouds.
Figure 1: CAD model of holder (left) and Blaser mounted on robot arm(right)