Vision System and Quality Assurance

Main functionalities

A vision system serves as an aid for detecting optically detectable features and converting them into data that can be easily processed further, e.g. as switching signals for controls or text for quality documentation. Therefore, an overview of the main aspects to consider when implementing a vision system in a production system are given in the following. This module is supposed to support the participant’s process of selecting and implementing an appropriate vision system. Following the aspects in this guide, the planning of workstations and production systems can be improved and streamlined. In the following, an explanation is given for inputs that have to be considered in order to implement a vision system.

Technical specifications

The vision system consist out of the following components from „Keyence“: Camera CA-H500CX-MX, objective CA-LHR8, controller CV-X400 and ring light CA-DQP12X. The pre installed software of the manufacturer of the vision system Keyence is required for image recognition, image processing and for calculating the position correction. The Software KR-Term is used to access programmes that run in continous loops (i.e. image recognition) via the robot control.

Inputs and outputs

Inputs:

Presence of components
Presence of persons
Gestures of persons
Position/orientation of components
Colourfulness
Geometry
Object detection
Labels on components (text, QR codes)
Error detection (e.g. cracks)
Surface condition
Static or moving objects

Outputs:
Once all these preliminary considerations and boundary conditions have been made, the concrete system must be selected for its specific application. Due to the high dynamics in this field of development and the constantly improving evaluation algorithms, it is necessary to approach the relevant manufacturers of such products in order to get the most suited vision system. If the quality requirements are not too high, inexpensive cameras can usually be used, but most attention should be paid to the evaluation software. This software determines the performance of the entire system. Moreover, with many systems, separate lighting is important for an economical overall result. A distinction needs to be made between the incident light and transmitted light systems.

Formats and standards

Keyence image processing software is used for image recognition and processing.

Owner (organization)

Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology (IWU)

Trainings

Training material for the Vision System and Quality Assurance module are found at the TRINITY training platform: http://heinlein.mech.upatras.gr/trinity/vision-system-quality-assurance/

To learn more about the solution, click on the link below to access the training on the Moodle platform
Vision System/Quality assurance