Flexible Visual Quality Inspection in Discrete Manufacturing

Most visual quality inspections in discrete manufacturing are composed of length, surface, angle or intensity measurements. Those are implemented as end-user configurable inspection tools that should not require an image processing expert to set up. Currently available software solutions providing such capability use a flowchart based programming environment, but do not fully address an inspection flowchart robustness and can require a redefinition of the flowchart if a small variation is introduced. In this paper we propose an acquire-register-analyze image processing pattern designed for discrete manufacturing that aims to increase the robustness of the inspection flowchart by consistently addressing variations in product position, orientation and size. A proposed pattern is transparent to the end-user and simplifies the flowchart. We describe a developed software solution that is a practical implementation of the proposed pattern. We give an example of its real-life use in industrial production of electric components.