Internationale Partnersuche

Innovation & Technologie Angebot

Advanced 3D industrial inspection system

Country of Origin: Spain
Reference Number: TOES20170731002
Publication Date: 31 July 2017

Summary

A Spanish ICT research center offers an inspection system that applies machine vision to quality control: An industrial solution easy to integrate in production processes, capturing images of an object while it is in free fall and then detecting any deviation by means of surface, volumetric and metrology tests. The system also classifies a mix of objects into expected and non-expected ones. They look for partners to establish license agreement, manufacturing agreement, or services agreement.

Description

A Spanish ICT (Information & Communications Technologies) research center offers an inspection system that applies machine vision to quality control.

 

Industrial inspection is a field where accurate and fast systems are important to achieve high quality without compromising the production speed. Today the process of verification of product quality is incomplete or requires mechanical handling, with the associated problems (hiding of some faces, increase of the inspection time, adaptation to each manufactured part, etc.), costs and delays. 



The 3D industrial inspection system offered proceeds in three simple steps: 



1) Capture

The device contains a number of cameras distributed in a sphere. The special location of the cameras is optimized to obtain the best reconstruction fidelity. It captures the objects without contact or manipulation, and without hidden surfaces: the part under inspection is dropped from the top, it falls freely and the images are captured simultaneously by all cameras, allowing the fast reconstruction of an accurate 3D model of the object.



2) Reconstruction

Once obtained all the images, a 3D reconstruction is performed. The techniques developed for this lead to a very efficient process that allows a very high throughput of the system.



3) Inspection

The tolerance is easily adjustable according to the quality parameters defined for each part or for each particular area of it, giving rise to the rejection of those objects that do not fit the required dimensional or surface standards.

The analysis of the production problems is made easier with an included application that, using a color code, highlights the differences between the part and the reference model, allowing visualizing the errors that appear in an object. Different types of errors are shown in the user interface, in function of the kind of analysis performed. Thus, the complete set of results for an inspected object is a report composed with information on surface defect inspection, volumetric defect inspection and a check list of geometric dimensions and tolerances.



Among the applications of the system it can be highlighted: industrial inspection for quality control of products of any size, dimensional or surface control, fast acquisition of 3D measurements from real parts, etc., everything with low maintenance costs and high throughput.



There are many application sectors for the system such as plastic industry, food industry, packaging, electronics, automotive industry, pharmaceutical industry, …



The research organization is mainly looking for industrial equipment manufacturers that can implement the product into industries. Different types of co-operation are possible: license agreement, manufacturing agreement or services agreement.



Manufacturing Agreement: The Spanish centre will provide the software technology and the prototype to the collaborator, and will keep on improving it and its functionality. The collaborator will industrialize the physical part of the system (hardware). The collaborator will be given a % of the ownership of the final product.



License Agreement: Once the product is industrialized, a collaborator is needed for the commercialisation and deployment of the system. This collaborator will charge to the client and the Spanish centre will receive a license fee for the software for each deployment of the system. This license and also the potential exclusivity will be negotiated with the partner, taking into account the market to be addressed. There is the possibility that the industrialization and commercialization is carried out by the same partner.



Services Agreement: If the partner is interested in a specific analysis/inspection of a sample of products, the Spanish centre will perform a feasibility study previous to any other development/deployment project.

Advantages and Innovations

3D inspection has several intrinsic problems related to the following issues:

- 3D parts of different size and shape.

- Need to control surfaces, volume, geometry, dimensions and tolerances.

- High manipulation costs.



Current solutions for 3D inspection could be classified into two categories:

1) Active methods: fly time; structured light; modulated laser; conoscopic holography; CAT (computerized axial tomography).

2) Passive methods: stereoscopy; photometry, unfocussing, etc.; outlines.



These current solutions have several problems:

- Inspection time / workload.

- Part positioning, which leads to mechanical manipulation.

- Uncompleted reconstruction.

- Cost and complexity.



The advanced 3D industrial inspection system offered by the Spanish ICT research center solves these limitations. Its main advantages are:

• Inspection of any object without manipulation, even parts that are now manually verified can be automatically inspected. 

• Extra functionality of object classification, useful for separating a mixture of objects depending on their shape.

• Suitable for different part sizes (screws, springs, nuts, etc.)

• Models from CAD (computer assisted design) design or self-learning. It can control (2D and 3D) all object sides.

• Easily scalable solution.

• Adjustable tolerances: easy adaptation to particular size and precision needs.

• Adaptable design to configure useful volume and spatial resolution

• Fast process, the technology allows capturing as many objects as possible with the only restriction that no occlusions appear among them.

• Novel and unique patented acquisition device with a multi camera configuration.

Stage Of Development

Available for demonstration

Requested partner

Type of partner sought: industrial equipment manufacturers from different application sectors such as: plastic industry, food industry, packaging, electronics, automotive industry, pharmaceutical industry, etc. companies. 



Activity of the partner: manufacturing of industrial equipments and their commercialization and deployment. t manufacturers.



Role of the partner: implementation of the product into industries, via a manufacturing agreement, in which the collaborator will industrialize the physical part of the system (hardware) and via a license agreement, in which after the product is industrialized it will be commercialized and deployed by the same or a different partner. Futhermore it is possible a services agreement when the partner just needs specific analysis/inspection of a sample of products. This can be carried out by the Spanish centre in their facilities..