Development Of Pipeline Corrosion Inspection System Using Machine Vision

These days, utilization of camera as an inspection tool has been expanded. The flexible function of camera is adequate to obtain different kind of information. In Cawley (2001) review on NDT that was presented in 2001, Radiography, Ultrasonic, Eddy Current, Magnetic Particle, and Penetrant Testing were the top five techniques dominating the NDT market yet Visual Inspection is the most widely applied. Even though the popularity of visual inspection is higher compared to other NDT method, but due to the reliability issues it is often used together with other methods. This research work is focusing on developing a robust corrosion inspection system based on vision sensor that is able to accurately detect and classify corrosion based on the appearance features. By installing at an early stage, inspection system would be able to gather data and at the same time identify and analyse the collected data. Through the results, the analysed data is able to classify the corrosion type based on appearance. From the research work, the method of using image enhancement filters to improve accuracy of vision corrosion inspection system is identified. The detection of each macroscopic surface corrosion types; galvanic; crevice; erosion; pitting and exfoliation using vision inspection able to achieve 79% accuracy using the simulated dataset. The new method of corrosion inspection operation which able to generate prevention plan has qualified the Vision Corrosion Inspection System to be used during preliminary inspection. It is expected that the Vision Corrosion Inspection System can improve vision inspection as the pioneer in NDT method for corrosion inspection. In addition, framework of the developed Vision Corrosion Inspection system is applicable for other applications of vision inspection whereby it can be applied for other inspection process or extending its application to other problems

Comparison of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks and Edge Detectors for Image-Based Crack Detection in Concrete

This paper compares the performance of common edge detectors and deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN) for image-based crack detection in concrete structures. A dataset of 19 high definition images (3420 sub-images, 319 with cracks and 3101 without) of concrete is analyzed using six common edge detection schemes (Roberts, Prewitt, Sobel, Laplacian of Gaussian, Butterworth, and Gaussian) and using the AlexNet DCNN architecture in fully trained, transfer learning, and classifier modes. The relative performance of each crack detection method is compared here for the first time on a single dataset. Edge detection methods accurately detected 53–79% of cracked pixels, but they produced residual noise in the final binary images. The best of these methods was useful in detecting cracks wider than 0.1 mm. DCNNs were used to label images, and accurately labeled them with 99% accuracy. In transfer learning mode, the network accurately detected about 86% of cracked images. DCNNs also detected much finer cracks than edge detection methods. In fully trained and classifier modes, the network detected cracks wider than 0.08 mm; in transfer learning mode, the network was able to detect cracks wider than 0.04 mm. Computational times for DCNN are shorter than the most efficient edge detection algorithms, not considering the training process. These results show significant promise for future adoption of DCNN methods for image-based damage detection in concrete. To reduce the residual noise, a hybrid method was proposed by combining the DCNN and edge detectors which reduced the noise by a factor of 24

Non-Contact Evaluation Methods for Infrastructure Condition Assessment

The United States infrastructure, e.g. roads and bridges, are in a critical condition. Inspection, monitoring, and maintenance of these infrastructure in the traditional manner can be expensive, dangerous, time-consuming, and tied to human judgment (the inspector). Non-contact methods can help overcoming these challenges. In this dissertation two aspects of non-contact methods are explored: inspections using unmanned aerial systems (UASs), and conditions assessment using image processing and machine learning techniques. This presents a set of investigations to determine a guideline for remote autonomous bridge inspections

An Automated Liver Vasculature Segmentation from CT Scans for Hepatic Surgical Planning

Liver vasculature segmentation is a crucial step for liver surgical planning. Segmentation of liver vasculature is an important part of the 3D visualisation of the liver anatomy. The spatial relationship between vessels and other liver structures, like tumors and liver anatomic segments, helps in reducing the surgical treatment risks. However, liver vessels segmentation is a challenging task, that is due to low contrast with neighboring parenchyma, the complex anatomy, the very thin branches and very small vessels. This paper introduces a fully automated framework consist of four steps to segment the vessels inside the liver organ. Firstly, in the preprocessing step, a combination of two filtering techniques are used to extract and enhance vessels inside the liver region, first the vesselness filter is used to extract the vessels structure, and then the anisotropic coherence enhancing diffusion (CED) filter is used to enhance the intensity within the tubular vessels structure. This step is followed by a smart multiple thresholding to extract the initial vasculature segmentation. The liver vasculature structures, including hepatic veins connected to the inferior vena cava and the portal veins, are extracted. Finally, the inferior vena cava is segmented and excluded from the vessels segmentation, as it is not considered as part of the liver vasculature structure. The liver vessel segmentation method is validated on the publically available 3DIRCAD datasets. Dice coefficient (DSC) is used to evaluate the method, the average DSC score achieved a score 68.5%. The proposed approach succeeded to segment liver vasculature from the liver envelope accurately, which makes it as potential tool for clinical preoperative planning

NASA Tech Briefs Index, 1977, volume 2, numbers 1-4

Announcements of new technology derived from the research and development activities of NASA are presented. Abstracts, and indexes for subject, personal author, originating center, and Tech Brief number are presented for 1977

Enhancing remanufacturing automation using deep learning approach

In recent years, remanufacturing has significant interest from researchers and practitioners to improve efficiency through maximum value recovery of products at end-of-life (EoL). It is a process of returning used products, known as EoL products, to as-new condition with matching or higher warranty than the new products. However, these remanufacturing processes are complex and time-consuming to implement manually, causing reduced productivity and posing dangers to personnel. These challenges require automating the various remanufacturing process stages to achieve higher throughput, reduced lead time, cost and environmental impact while maximising economic gains. Besides, as highlighted by various research groups, there is currently a shortage of adequate remanufacturing-specific technologies to achieve full automation. -- This research explores automating remanufacturing processes to improve competitiveness by analysing and developing deep learning-based models for automating different stages of the remanufacturing processes. Analysing deep learning algorithms represents a viable option to investigate and develop technologies with capabilities to overcome the outlined challenges. Deep learning involves using artificial neural networks to learn high-level abstractions in data. Deep learning (DL) models are inspired by human brains and have produced state-of-the-art results in pattern recognition, object detection and other applications. The research further investigates the empirical data of torque converter components recorded from a remanufacturing facility in Glasgow, UK, using the in-case and cross-case analysis to evaluate the remanufacturing inspection, sorting, and process control applications. -- Nevertheless, the developed algorithm helped capture, pre-process, train, deploy and evaluate the performance of the respective processes. The experimental evaluation of the in-case and cross-case analysis using model prediction accuracy, misclassification rate, and model loss highlights that the developed models achieved a high prediction accuracy of above 99.9% across the sorting, inspection and process control applications. Furthermore, a low model loss between 3x10-3 and 1.3x10-5 was obtained alongside a misclassification rate that lies between 0.01% to 0.08% across the three applications investigated, thereby highlighting the capability of the developed deep learning algorithms to perform the sorting, process control and inspection in remanufacturing. The results demonstrate the viability of adopting deep learning-based algorithms in automating remanufacturing processes, achieving safer and more efficient remanufacturing. -- Finally, this research is unique because it is the first to investigate using deep learning and qualitative torque-converter image data for modelling remanufacturing sorting, inspection and process control applications. It also delivers a custom computational model that has the potential to enhance remanufacturing automation when utilised. The findings and publications also benefit both academics and industrial practitioners. Furthermore, the model is easily adaptable to other remanufacturing applications with minor modifications to enhance process efficiency in today's workplaces.In recent years, remanufacturing has significant interest from researchers and practitioners to improve efficiency through maximum value recovery of products at end-of-life (EoL). It is a process of returning used products, known as EoL products, to as-new condition with matching or higher warranty than the new products. However, these remanufacturing processes are complex and time-consuming to implement manually, causing reduced productivity and posing dangers to personnel. These challenges require automating the various remanufacturing process stages to achieve higher throughput, reduced lead time, cost and environmental impact while maximising economic gains. Besides, as highlighted by various research groups, there is currently a shortage of adequate remanufacturing-specific technologies to achieve full automation. -- This research explores automating remanufacturing processes to improve competitiveness by analysing and developing deep learning-based models for automating different stages of the remanufacturing processes. Analysing deep learning algorithms represents a viable option to investigate and develop technologies with capabilities to overcome the outlined challenges. Deep learning involves using artificial neural networks to learn high-level abstractions in data. Deep learning (DL) models are inspired by human brains and have produced state-of-the-art results in pattern recognition, object detection and other applications. The research further investigates the empirical data of torque converter components recorded from a remanufacturing facility in Glasgow, UK, using the in-case and cross-case analysis to evaluate the remanufacturing inspection, sorting, and process control applications. -- Nevertheless, the developed algorithm helped capture, pre-process, train, deploy and evaluate the performance of the respective processes. The experimental evaluation of the in-case and cross-case analysis using model prediction accuracy, misclassification rate, and model loss highlights that the developed models achieved a high prediction accuracy of above 99.9% across the sorting, inspection and process control applications. Furthermore, a low model loss between 3x10-3 and 1.3x10-5 was obtained alongside a misclassification rate that lies between 0.01% to 0.08% across the three applications investigated, thereby highlighting the capability of the developed deep learning algorithms to perform the sorting, process control and inspection in remanufacturing. The results demonstrate the viability of adopting deep learning-based algorithms in automating remanufacturing processes, achieving safer and more efficient remanufacturing. -- Finally, this research is unique because it is the first to investigate using deep learning and qualitative torque-converter image data for modelling remanufacturing sorting, inspection and process control applications. It also delivers a custom computational model that has the potential to enhance remanufacturing automation when utilised. The findings and publications also benefit both academics and industrial practitioners. Furthermore, the model is easily adaptable to other remanufacturing applications with minor modifications to enhance process efficiency in today's workplaces

Forum Bildverarbeitung 2022

Bildverarbeitung verknüpft das Fachgebiet die Sensorik von Kameras – bildgebender Sensorik – mit der Verarbeitung der Sensordaten – den Bildern. Daraus resultiert der besondere Reiz dieser Disziplin. Der vorliegende Tagungsband des „Forums Bildverarbeitung“, das am 24. und 25.11.2022 in Karlsruhe als Veranstaltung des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie und des Fraunhofer-Instituts für Optronik, Systemtechnik und Bildauswertung stattfand, enthält die Aufsätze der eingegangenen Beiträge

AMCD : an accurate deep learning-based metallic corrosion detector for MAV-based real-time visual inspection

Corrosion has been concerned as a serious safety issue for metallic facilities. Visual inspection carried out by an engineer is expensive, subjective and time-consuming. Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) equipped with detection algorithms have the potential to perform safer and much more efficient visual inspection tasks than engineers. Towards corrosion detection algorithms, convolution neural networks (CNNs) have enabled the power for high accuracy metallic corrosion detection. However, these detectors are restricted by MAVs on-board capabilities. In this study, based on You Only Look Once v3-tiny (Yolov3-tiny), an accurate deep learning-based metallic corrosion detector (AMCD) is proposed for MAVs on-board metallic corrosion detection. Specifically, a backbone with depthwise separable convolution (DSConv) layers is designed to realise efficient corrosion detection. The convolutional block attention module (CBAM), three-scale object detection and focal loss are incorporated to improve the detection accuracy. Moreover, the spatial pyramid pooling (SPP) module is improved to fuse local features for further improvement of detection accuracy. A eld inspection image dataset labelled with four types of corrosions (the nubby corrosion, bar corrosion, exfoliation and fastener corrosion) is utilised for training and testing the AMCD. Test results show that the AMCD achieves 84.96% mean average precision (mAP), which outperforms other state-of-the-art detectors. Meanwhile, 20.18 frames per second (FPS) is achieved leveraging NVIDIA Jetson TX2, the most popular MAVs on-board computer, and the model size is only 6.1MB

Hyperspectral imaging based detection of PVC during Sellafield repackaging procedures.

Traditionally, Special Nuclear Material (SNM) at Sellafield has been stored in multi-layered packages, consisting of metallic cans and an over-layer of plasticized Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) as an intermediate layer when transitioning between areas of different radiological classification. However, it has been found that plasticized PVC can break down in the presence of both radiation and heat, releasing hydrochloric acid which can corrode these metallic containers. Therefore, internal repackaging procedures at Sellafield have focused recently on the removal of these PVC films from containers, where as much degraded and often adhered PVC as possible is manually removed based on visual inspection. This manual operation is time-consuming and it is possible that residual fragments of PVC could remain, leading to corrosion-related issues in future. In this work, Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) was evaluated as a new tool for detecting PVC on metallic surfaces. Samples of stainless steel type 1.4404 – also known as 316L, the same as is used to construct SNM cans – and PVC were imaged in our experiments, and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification models were used to generate detection maps. In these maps, pixels were classified into either PVC or 316L based on their spectral responses in the range 954-1700nm of the electromagnetic spectrum. Results suggest that HSI could be used for an effective automated detection and quantification of PVC during repackaging procedures, detection and quantification that could be extended to other similar applications

NASA SBIR abstracts of 1991 phase 1 projects

The objectives of 301 projects placed under contract by the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are described. These projects were selected competitively from among proposals submitted to NASA in response to the 1991 SBIR Program Solicitation. The basic document consists of edited, non-proprietary abstracts of the winning proposals submitted by small businesses. The abstracts are presented under the 15 technical topics within which Phase 1 proposals were solicited. Each project was assigned a sequential identifying number from 001 to 301, in order of its appearance in the body of the report. Appendixes to provide additional information about the SBIR program and permit cross-reference of the 1991 Phase 1 projects by company name, location by state, principal investigator, NASA Field Center responsible for management of each project, and NASA contract number are included