FORMING AND FABRICATING AUTOMATION
6.1: Vision Systems The Future is Now: Inline Visual Part Inspection in High-Speed Presses E ven in the highest-speed press lines, if a part detail can be seen by a camera, the camera will pick it up and sense bad parts. That’s not all. Automated vision systems now can cut bad parts out and reattach the strip via laser welding without stopping the line. Recent advancements in high-speed stamp- ing presses and peripheral equipment reveal just how far automated vision-based inspec- tion has come. Even in the highest-speed press lines, if a part detail can be seen by a camera, the camera will pick it up and sense bad parts. That’s not all. Automated vision systems can cut bad parts out and reattach the strip via laser welding without stopping the line.
This closeup shows a strip section where a laser has cut out a bad part and then welded the strip back together, followed by tensile testing of the weld—without production interruption.
processing, and the ability for parallel pro- cessing that allows real-time identifications and actions. If the software detects an in- creased number of bad parts, it will provide real-time messages to alert technicians for closer looks at the stamping process to de- termine causes. During lights-out operation, the system can be programmed to cut out an entire strip section instead of individual bad parts in order to maintain production without taking up the entire loop of parts that reside between the press and the inspection station.
This vision-inspection unit provides the ability to identify a bad part feature, remove the part and rejoin the strip—all without slowing high-speed-stamping operations.
ing trays—to eliminate the need to set cameras for each recurring run, and prevent operators from making imprecise adjustments. Identifying part features and identifying bad parts, then tracking and precisely removing bad parts while the press continues churning out good parts, owe to advances in computer
Advantages of housing cameras in a mod- ular unit include the ability to isolate the envi- ronment and lighting to ensure proper condi- tions for image capture. And, should recurring jobs demand precise camera placement, such setups can be exchanged from one job to an- other—simply remove/insert camera-contain-
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