<title>Automatic inspection of workpieces at the shop floor using imaging sensors</title>

Abstract

Automatic production of mechanical parts requires quality control, in particular dimensional measurement after carrying out critical production steps. Usually, precision measurements are performed manually or by tactile measuring robots. Imaging sensors may replace tactile sensors, thereby increase speed and offer some special features making dimensional measurements fast enough to follow the production rate. These sensors will only be accepted by the user at the shop floor if they are easy to use. A measuring robot carries out very different operations in comparison with a set-up only used for a single inspection task. Consequently, the applied methods including lighting, imaging, and computing have to be useful for a wide range of measuring tasks. The paper describes the system including a special optical set-up for lighting and imaging being well suited to the needs of dimensional inspection at the shop floor an electronic hardware used for real-time image processing image processing software and related tools.