A vision system with automatic learning capability for industrial parts inspection

[[abstract]]A vision system for automated parts inspection is proposed. The system is equipped with learning capabilities such that it automatically selects from a set of sample parts a minimum, but effective inspection region within the camera's field of view for parts discrimination. A binary template is formed within the inspection region which is then used for parts inspection by template matching. The inspection speed is enhanced by keeping the inspection region small and by making the matching task uncomplicated. A simple learning algorithm based on statistical pattern recognition theory is employed, which only requires the system to be taught by a training set of good and defective parts without specific defect identification or location. The system is applicable to most 2-D industrial parts inspection

A vision-based system for inspecting painted slates

Purpose – This paper describes the development of a novel automated vision system used to detect the visual defects on painted slates. Design/methodology/approach – The vision system that has been developed consists of two major components covering the opto-mechanical and algorithmical aspects of the system. The first component addresses issues including the mechanical implementation and interfacing the inspection system with the development of a fast image processing procedure able to identify visual defects present on the slate surface. Findings – The inspection system was developed on 400 slates to determine the threshold settings that give the best trade-off between no false positive triggers and correct defect identification. The developed system was tested on more than 300 fresh slates and the success rate for correct identification of acceptable and defective slates was 99.32 per cent for defect free slates based on 148 samples and 96.91 per cent for defective slates based on 162 samples. Practical implications – The experimental data indicates that automating the inspection of painted slates can be achieved and installation in a factory is a realistic target. Testing the devised inspection system in a factory-type environment was an important part of the development process as this enabled us to develop the mechanical system and the image processing algorithm able to perform slate inspection in an industrial environment. The overall performance of the system indicates that the proposed solution can be considered as a replacement for the existing manual inspection system. Originality/value – The development of a real-time automated system for inspecting painted slates proved to be a difficult task since the slate surface is dark coloured, glossy, has depth profile non-uniformities and is being transported at high speeds on a conveyor. In order to address these issues, the system described in this paper proposed a number of novel solutions including the illumination set-up and the development of multi-component image-processing inspection algorithm

Integrated process of images and acceleration measurements for damage detection

The use of mobile robots and UAV to catch unthinkable images together with on-site global automated acceleration measurements easy achievable by wireless sensors, able of remote data transfer, have strongly enhanced the capability of defect and damage evaluation in bridges. A sequential procedure is, here, proposed for damage monitoring and bridge condition assessment based on both: digital image processing for survey and defect evaluation and structural identification based on acceleration measurements. A steel bridge has been simultaneously inspected by UAV to acquire images using visible light, or infrared radiation, and monitored through a wireless sensor network (WSN) measuring structural vibrations. First, image processing has been used to construct a geometrical model and to quantify corrosion extension. Then, the consistent structural model has been updated based on the modal quantities identified using the acceleration measurements acquired by the deployed WSN. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd

GLCM-based chi-square histogram distance for automatic detection of defects on patterned textures

Chi-square histogram distance is one of the distance measures that can be used to find dissimilarity between two histograms. Motivated by the fact that texture discrimination by human vision system is based on second-order statistics, we make use of histogram of gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) that is based on second-order statistics and propose a new machine vision algorithm for automatic defect detection on patterned textures. Input defective images are split into several periodic blocks and GLCMs are computed after quantizing the gray levels from 0-255 to 0-63 to keep the size of GLCM compact and to reduce computation time. Dissimilarity matrix derived from chi-square distances of the GLCMs is subjected to hierarchical clustering to automatically identify defective and defect-free blocks. Effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through experiments on defective real-fabric images of 2 major wallpaper groups (pmm and p4m groups).Comment: IJCVR, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2011, pp. 302-31

Inspection System And Method For Bond Detection And Validation Of Surface Mount Devices Using Sensor Fusion And Active Perception

A hybrid surface mount component inspection system which includes both vision and infrared inspection techniques to determine the presence of surface mount components on a printed wiring board, and the quality of solder joints of surface mount components on printed wiring boards by using data level sensor fusion to combine data from two infrared sensors to obtain emissivity independent thermal signatures of solder joints, and using feature level sensor fusion with active perception to assemble and process inspection information from any number of sensors to determine characteristic feature sets of different defect classes to classify solder defects.Georgia Tech Research Corporatio

Automatic Color Inspection for Colored Wires in Electric Cables

In this paper, an automatic optical inspection system for checking the sequence of colored wires in electric cable is presented. The system is able to inspect cables with flat connectors differing in the type and number of wires. This variability is managed in an automatic way by means of a self-learning subsystem and does not require manual input from the operator or loading new data to the machine. The system is coupled to a connector crimping machine and once the model of a correct cable is learned, it can automatically inspect each cable assembled by the machine. The main contributions of this paper are: (i) the self-learning system; (ii) a robust segmentation algorithm for extracting wires from images even if they are strongly bent and partially overlapped; (iii) a color recognition algorithm able to cope with highlights and different finishing of the wire insulation. We report the system evaluation over a period of several months during the actual production of large batches of different cables; tests demonstrated a high level of accuracy and the absence of false negatives, which is a key point in order to guarantee defect-free productions