Viewpoints
Mark Williamson, director of corporate market development at Stemmer Imaging, looks at how the automotive market for machine vision is changing
A
s one of the world’s most cost- sensitive industries, the automotive sector is also one of the most
demanding in terms of product quality and aversion to component failures – and the beauty of vision is that it can be used on components, and sub-assemblies throughout the supply chain, right up to inspections on the final vehicle itself. Inspection continues to be one of the
most important uses of vision, being used for quality control of components ranging from functional elements such as engines, drives, and chassis components to safety- relevant parts such as brakes, steering, airbags and seat belts. A multitude of electronic components including cable tracks, switches and displays can also be inspected. Te automotive industry actively embraces the use of new technology and many inspections have been made possible or more robust with the emergence of affordable 3D inspection techniques. Another area generating a lot of interest is the classification and selection of raw materials by identifying surface defects that would prevent them being used for visible parts of the bodywork – even the smallest of scratches can become very prominent once it has been painted. 3D techniques are also
important in robot vision applications and it is difficult to imagine performing some assembly operations without machine vision, for example, using robot guidance to position and bond windscreens or to fit doors. Figures published in July by Te Society of
UK’s trade in goods, with suppliers adding £4.8 billion in added value, and the sector as a whole turned over £60.5 billion in 2013 according to a report published by KPMG in association with the SMMT. Tere are over 3,000 companies involved in the UK automotive sector, ranging from many of the world’s major vehicle manufacturers to the supply chain that feeds into them. Leading-edge vision technology is an essential commodity in the validation of complex assembly processes.
The recent surge
in investment with advanced techniques has helped manufacturers gain confidence in the use of vision
Automotive production’s changing needs Vision is likely to impact future developments in automotive manufacturing processes in different ways. Firstly existing techniques may be adapted for emerging manufacturing processes and secondly there will be new vision techniques that will help with current processes. Consider changes being made to quality inspection in the industry: instead of zero tolerance of any defect (however small) the industry is moving towards differentiating between critical and non- critical defects – those that affect the functionality of the object and those that do not. Te flexibility in defect classification offered by existing vision methodology means that this new approach can be readily accommodated. Similarly, developments in
Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show that new car registrations in the UK are up 7.0 per cent in first half of 2015 – the highest half-year performance on record. In addition, UK-built cars make up the highest proportion of new registrations in five years, while June marked a record 40th consecutive month of growth, with registrations up 12.9 per cent in the month. In real terms, automotive accounts for 10 per cent of the
vision technology mean that more things can be done in a shorter time for a lower price as time goes on. For example, five years ago, 2D pick-and-place was considered state of the art, but by adding 3D imaging, the guidance of complex, multi-operation robot assemblies using machine vision is now relatively commonplace. New technology helps with quality control in metal fabrication. Structured lighting is used in the detection of defects like haze and orange peel on panels, while micron-level measurements can be carried out on complete engine blocks on the fly.
16 Imaging and Machine Vision Europe • Yearbook 2015/2016
@imveurope
www.imveurope.com
New solutions will always emerge to solve
existing problems. For example, problems can arise from variations in material suppliers and machining finishes. Changes in raw material sources or machining techniques can generate metal surfaces that ‘look’ different to an existing machine vision system, producing different types of reflections and creating imaging issues. One way of addressing this is the use of omni-directional lighting and a new approach to surface inspection using exciting new ‘shape from shading techniques’. Te outlook for increasing uses of vision
in the automotive industry both in the short and medium term is very good. Crucially, the recent surge in investment with advanced techniques has helped manufacturers gain confidence in the use of vision in their operations. Vision is now an integral part of their processes and is being ‘designed in’ a lot more. Advances in sensor technology means cameras are now at a comparable cost to tooling fixtures or hard gauges for assembly yet have greater functionality and can even be re-purposed if necessary. In other areas, reversing cameras, lane
departure and traffic sign recognition systems are now options in a lot of cars. Five years ago they were only seen in prestige cars, but if the trend continues not only will they be in all cars but they’ll be doing a lot more too (especially with the recent advances in gesture control and autonomous vehicles). Stemmer Imaging is even working on projects that will be replacing key parts of a vehicle’s functionality such as the wing mirrors.
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