Artificial intelligence for advanced manufacturing quality

100 p.This Thesis addresses the challenge of AI-based image quality control systems applied to manufacturing industry, aiming to improve this field through the use of advanced techniques for data acquisition and processing, in order to obtain robust, reliable and optimal systems. This Thesis presents contributions onthe use of complex data acquisition techniques, the application and design of specialised neural networks for the defect detection, and the integration and validation of these systems in production processes. It has been developed in the context of several applied research projects that provided a practical feedback of the usefulness of the proposed computational advances as well as real life data for experimental validation

Photometric Stereo-Based Defect Detection System for Steel Components Manufacturing Using a Deep Segmentation Network

This paper presents an automatic system for the quality control of metallic components using a photometric stereo-based sensor and a customized semantic segmentation network. This system is designed based on interoperable modules, and allows capturing the knowledge of the operators to apply it later in automatic defect detection. A salient contribution is the compact representation of the surface information achieved by combining photometric stereo images into a RGB image that is fed to a convolutional segmentation network trained for surface defect detection. We demonstrate the advantage of this compact surface imaging representation over the use of each photometric imaging source of information in isolation. An empirical analysis of the performance of the segmentation network on imaging samples of materials with diverse surface reflectance properties is carried out, achieving Dice performance index values above 0.83 in all cases. The results support the potential of photometric stereo in conjunction with our semantic segmentation network

Generative Adversarial Networks to Improve the Robustness of Visual Defect Segmentation by Semantic Networks in Manufacturing Components

This paper describes the application of Semantic Networks for the detection of defects in images of metallic manufactured components in a situation where the number of available samples of defects is small, which is rather common in real practical environments. In order to overcome this shortage of data, the common approach is to use conventional data augmentation techniques. We resort to Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) that have shown the capability to generate highly convincing samples of a specific class as a result of a game between a discriminator and a generator module. Here, we apply the GANs to generate samples of images of metallic manufactured components with specific defects, in order to improve training of Semantic Networks (specifically DeepLabV3+ and Pyramid Attention Network (PAN) networks) carrying out the defect detection and segmentation. Our process carries out the generation of defect images using the StyleGAN2 with the DiffAugment method, followed by a conventional data augmentation over the entire enriched dataset, achieving a large balanced dataset that allows robust training of the Semantic Network. We demonstrate the approach on a private dataset generated for an industrial client, where images are captured by an ad-hoc photometric-stereo image acquisition system, and a public dataset, the Northeastern University surface defect database (NEU). The proposed approach achieves an improvement of 7% and 6% in an intersection over union (IoU) measure of detection performance on each dataset over the conventional data augmentation

A CNN Based Approach for the Point-Light Photometric Stereo Problem

Reconstructing the 3D shape of an object using several images under different light sources is a very challenging task, especially when realistic assumptions such as light propagation and attenuation, perspective viewing geometry and specular light reflection are considered. Many of works tackling Photometric Stereo (PS) problems often relax most of the aforementioned assumptions. Especially they ignore specular reflection and global illumination effects. In this work, we propose a CNN-based approach capable of handling these realistic assumptions by leveraging recent improvements of deep neural networks for far-field Photometric Stereo and adapt them to the point light setup. We achieve this by employing an iterative procedure of point-light PS for shape estimation which has two main steps. Firstly we train a per-pixel CNN to predict surface normals from reflectance samples. Secondly, we compute the depth by integrating the normal field in order to iteratively estimate light directions and attenuation which is used to compensate the input images to compute reflectance samples for the next iteration. Our approach sigificantly outperforms the state-of-the-art on the DiLiGenT real world dataset. Furthermore, in order to measure the performance of our approach for near-field point-light source PS data, we introduce LUCES the first real-world 'dataset for near-fieLd point light soUrCe photomEtric Stereo' of 14 objects of different materials were the effects of point light sources and perspective viewing are a lot more significant. Our approach also outperforms the competition on this dataset as well. Data and test code are available at the project page.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2009.0579

Surface analysis and visualization from multi-light image collections

Multi-Light Image Collections (MLICs) are stacks of photos of a scene acquired with a fixed viewpoint and a varying surface illumination that provides large amounts of visual and geometric information. Over the last decades, a wide variety of methods have been devised to extract information from MLICs and have shown its use in different application domains to support daily activities. In this thesis, we present methods that leverage a MLICs for surface analysis and visualization. First, we provide background information: acquisition setup, light calibration and application areas where MLICs have been successfully used for the research of daily analysis work. Following, we discuss the use of MLIC for surface visualization and analysis and available tools used to support the analysis. Here, we discuss methods that strive to support the direct exploration of the captured MLIC, methods that generate relightable models from MLIC, non-photorealistic visualization methods that rely on MLIC, methods that estimate normal map from MLIC and we point out visualization tools used to do MLIC analysis. In chapter 3 we propose novel benchmark datasets (RealRTI, SynthRTI and SynthPS) that can be used to evaluate algorithms that rely on MLIC and discusses available benchmark for validation of photometric algorithms that can be also used to validate other MLIC-based algorithms. In chapter 4, we evaluate the performance of different photometric stereo algorithms using SynthPS for cultural heritage applications. RealRTI and SynthRTI have been used to evaluate the performance of (Neural)RTI method. Then, in chapter 5, we present a neural network-based RTI method, aka NeuralRTI, a framework for pixel-based encoding and relighting of RTI data. In this method using a simple autoencoder architecture, we show that it is possible to obtain a highly compressed representation that better preserves the original information and provides increased quality of virtual images relighted from novel directions, particularly in the case of challenging glossy materials. Finally, in chapter 6, we present a method for the detection of crack on the surface of paintings from multi-light image acquisitions and that can be used as well on single images and conclude our presentation

Variable illumination and invariant features for detecting and classifying varnish defects

This work presents a method to detect and classify varnish defects on wood surfaces. Since these defects are only partially visible under certain illumination directions, one image doesn\u27t provide enough information for a recognition task. A classification requires inspecting the surface under different illumination directions, which results in image series. The information is distributed along this series and can be extracted by merging the knowledge about the defect shape and light direction

3D inspection methods for specular or partially specular surfaces

Deflectometric techniques are a powerful tool for the automated quality control of specular or shiny surfaces. These techniques are based on using a camera to observe a reference pattern reflected on the surface under inspection, exploiting the dependence of specular reflections on surface normals to recover shape information from the acquired images. Although deflectometry is already used in industrial environments such as the quality control of lenses or car bodies, there are still some open problems. On the one hand, using quantitative deflectometry, the normal vector field and the 3D shape of a surface can be obtained, but these techniques do not yet take full advantage of their local sensitivity because the achieved global accuracies are affected by calibration errors. On the other hand, qualitative deflectometry is used to detect surface imperfections without absolute measurements, exploiting the local sensitivity of deflectometric recordings with reduced calibration requirements. However, this qualitative approach requires further processing that can involve a considerable engineering effort, particularly for aesthetic defects which are inherently subjective. The first part of this thesis aims to contribute to a better understanding of how deflectometric setups and their calibration errors affect quantitative measurements. Different error sources are considered including the camera calibration uncertainty and several non-ideal characteristics of LCD screens used to generate the light patterns. Experiments performed using real measurements and simulations show that the non-planarity of the LCD screen and the camera calibration are the dominant sources of error. The second part of the thesis investigates the use of deep learning to identify geometrical imperfections and texture defects based on deflectometric data. Two different approaches are explored to extract and combine photometric and geometric information using convolutional neural network architectures: one for automated classification of defective samples, and another one for automated segmentation of defective regions in a sample. The experimental results in a real industrial case study indicate that both architectures are able to learn relevant features from deflectometric data, enabling the classification and segmentation of defects based on a dataset of user-provided examples.Teknika deflektometrikoak tresna baliotsuak dira gainazal espekular edo distiratsuen kalitate kontrol automatikoa gauzatzeko. Teknika hauetan, kamera bat erabiltzen da ikuskatu beharreko gainazalean islatutako erreferentziazko patroi bat behatzeko, eta isladapen espekularrek gainazalen bektore normalengan duten menpekotasuna ustiatzen dute irudietatik informazio geometrikoa berreskuratzeko. Zenbait industria-aplikaziotan deflektometria jada erabiltzen bada ere –adibidez, betaurrekoen edo autoen karrozerien kalitate kontrolean-, oraindik badaude hobetu beharreko hainbat esparru. Batetik, deflektometria kuantitatiboak aukera ematen du gainazal baten bektore-eremu normala eta 3D forma lortzeko, baina gaur egun teknika hauek ez dute beren sentsibilitate lokal guztia aprobetxatzen kalibrazio-akatsek zehaztasun globalean duten eraginagatik. Bestetik, deflektometria kualitatiboa neurketa absoluturik egin gabe gainazal akatsak antzemateko erabili daiteke, kalibrazio-eskakizun murriztuekin sentsibilitate lokala ustiatuz. Hala ere, teknika horiek algoritmoen garapenean esfortzu handia ekar dezakeen prozesamendu bat eskatzen dute, bereziki bere baitan subjektiboak diren akats estetikoetarako. Hala ere, teknika horiek algoritmoen garapenean esfortzu handia ekar dezakeen prozesamendu bat eskatzen dute, bereziki bere baitan subjektiboak diren akats estetikoetarako. Tesi honen lehen zatiaren helburua adkizizio sistema osatzen duten gailuek eta horien kalibrazioek neurketa kuantitatiboei nola eragiten dieten hobeto ulertzen laguntzea da. Hainbat errore-iturri hartzen dira kontuan, besteak beste kameraren kalibrazioaren ziurgabetasuna, eta argi-patroiak sortzeko erabilitako LCD pantailen zenbait ezaugarri ez-ideal. Neurketa errealetan eta simulazioetan egindako esperimentuek erakusten dute LCD pantailaren deformazioak eta kameraren kalibrazioak eragindako erroreak direla neurketen akats eta ziurgabetasun iturri nagusiak. Tesiaren bigarren zatian, datu deflektometrikoetatik abiatuz, inperfekzio geometrikoak eta testura-akatsak identifikatzeko ikaskuntza sakoneko metodoen erabilera ikertzen da. Helburu honekin, irudietatik informazio fotometrikoa eta geometrikoa atera eta konbinatzen duten sare neuronal konboluzionaletan oinarritutako bi arkitektura proposatzen dira: bata, lagin akastunak automatikoki sailkatzeko; eta, bestea, laginetako eremu akastunak automatikoki segmentatzeko. Automobilgintza industriako kasu praktiko baten lortutako emaitzek erakusten dute erabilitako arkitekturek datu deflektometrikoetatik ezaugarri esanguratsuak ikas ditzaketela, erabiltzaileak emandako adibide multzo batean oinarrituta gainazal akatsak sailkatu eta segmentatzea ahalbidetuz.Las técnicas deflectométricas son una herramienta valiosa para automatizar el control de calidad de superficies especulares o reflectantes. Estas técnicas se basan en el uso de una cámara para observar un patrón de referencia reflejado en la superficie bajo inspección, explotando la dependencia de los reflejos especulares en la normal de la superficie para recuperar información geométrica a partir de las imágenes adquiridas. Aunque la deflectometría ya se usa en algunas aplicaciones industriales, tales como el control de calidad de lentes o carrocerías de coches, todavía hay algunos problemas abiertos. Por un lado, la deflectometría cuantitativa permite obtener el campo vectorial normal y la forma 3D de una superficie, pero a día de hoy no es capaz de aprovechar al máximo su sensibilidad local ya que la precisión global se ve afectada por errores de calibración. Por otro lado, la deflectometría cualitativa se utiliza para detectar imperfecciones de la superficie sin mediciones absolutas, explotando la sensibilidad local de la deflectometría con requisitos de calibración reducidos. Sin embargo, estos métodos requieren un procesamiento adicional que puede implicar un esfuerzo considerable en el desarrollo de algoritmos, particularmente para defectos estéticos que son inherentemente subjetivos. La primera parte de esta tesis tiene como objetivo contribuir a una mejor comprensión de cómo el sistema de adquisición y su calibración afectan a las mediciones cuantitativas. Se consideran dife-rentes fuentes de error, incluida la incertidumbre de calibración de la cámara y varias características no ideales de las pantallas LCD utilizadas para generar los patrones de luz. Los experimentos realizados con mediciones reales y simulaciones indican que los errores inducidos por la deformación de la pantalla LCD y la calibración de la cámara son las principales fuentes de error e incertidumbre. La segunda parte de la tesis investiga el uso del aprendizaje profundo para identificar imperfecciones geométricas y defectos de textura a partir de datos deflectométricos. Se adoptan dos enfoques diferentes para extraer y combinar información fotométrica y geométrica utilizando sendas arquitecturas basadas en redes neuronales convolucionales: una para la clasificación automatizada de muestras defectuosas y otra para la segmentación automatizada de regiones defectuosas en una muestra. Los resultados experimentales en un caso de estudio industrial real indican que ambas arquitecturas pueden aprender características relevantes de los datos deflectométricos, permitiendo la clasificación y segmentación de defectos en base a un conjunto de datos de ejemplos proporcionados por el usuario

A comprehensive review of fruit and vegetable classification techniques

Recent advancements in computer vision have enabled wide-ranging applications in every field of life. One such application area is fresh produce classification, but the classification of fruit and vegetable has proven to be a complex problem and needs to be further developed. Fruit and vegetable classification presents significant challenges due to interclass similarities and irregular intraclass characteristics. Selection of appropriate data acquisition sensors and feature representation approach is also crucial due to the huge diversity of the field. Fruit and vegetable classification methods have been developed for quality assessment and robotic harvesting but the current state-of-the-art has been developed for limited classes and small datasets. The problem is of a multi-dimensional nature and offers significantly hyperdimensional features, which is one of the major challenges with current machine learning approaches. Substantial research has been conducted for the design and analysis of classifiers for hyperdimensional features which require significant computational power to optimise with such features. In recent years numerous machine learning techniques for example, Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN), Decision Trees, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) have been exploited with many different feature description methods for fruit and vegetable classification in many real-life applications. This paper presents a critical comparison of different state-of-the-art computer vision methods proposed by researchers for classifying fruit and vegetable