Changjie Liu

On-Line Industrial 3D Measurement Techniques for Large Volume Objects

Rapid progress in modern manufacturing demands for better measurement technique with on-line characteristics. This paper presents a systematic visual solution for on-line industrial 3D measurement. The solution comprises two parts, a multi-sensor visual inspecting station (MSVIS) and a digital close-range visual inspecting station (DCVIS). MSVIS is an integrated system with many sensors. It can meet the requirement of application with sparse measuring points distributed within a large volume. DCVIS only contains two digital cameras with one or more projectors. It has high relative accuracy and a small set up volume and is suitable for applications with dense measuring points. The combined use of MSVIS and DCVIS can provide a general solution for on-line industrial 3D measurement.

Study on Sensor Design Technique for Real-Time Robotic Welding Tracking System

Based on visual measurement techniques, the real-time robotic welding tracking system achieves real-time adjustment for robotic welding according to the position and shape changes of a workpiece. In system design, the sensor design technique is so important that its performance directly affects the precision and stability of the tracking system. Through initiative visual measurement technology, a camera unit for real-time sampling is built with multiple-strip structured light and a high-performance CMOS image sensor including 1.3 million pixels; to realize real-time data process and transmission, an image process unit is built with FPGA and DSP. Experiments show that the precision of this sensor reaches 0.3mm, and band rate comes up to 10Mbps, which effectively improves robot welding quality.With the development of advanced manufacturing technology, it becomes an inexorable trend to realize the automatic, flexible and intelligent welding product manufacture. With the advantage of interchangeability and reliability, robotic welding can boost productivity, improve work condition, stabilize and guarantee weld quality, and realize welding automation of the short run products [1]. At present, robotic welding has already become the application trend of automatic welding technology. Traditional welding robots are play-back ones, which cannot adapt environment and weld distortion. Especially in the more and more extensive arc-welding course, the deficiency and limitation of play-back welding technology becomes more prominent because of changeable welding condition. It becomes one of the key technology influencing the development of modern robotic welding technology to eliminate or decrease uncertain influence on quality of welding such as changing welding condition etc [2]. Based on visual measuring principle, this text adopts active visual measuring technology, cooperated with high-speed image process and transmission technology to structure a tracking sensor, to realize real-time measurement of the space location and posture information of the work piece and reliable and accurate tracking of the welding seam.

Calibration of Laser Beam Direction for Inner Diameter Measuring Device

The laser triangulation method is one of the most advanced methods for large inner diameter measurement. Our research group proposed a kind of inner diameter measuring device that is principally composed of three laser displacement sensors known to be fixed in the same plane measurement position. It is necessary to calibrate the direction of the laser beams that are emitted by laser displacement sensors because they do not meet the theoretical model accurately. For the purpose of calibrating the direction of laser beams, a calibration method and mathematical model were proposed. The inner diameter measuring device is equipped with the spindle of the machine tool. The laser beams rotate and translate in the plane and constitute the rotary rays which are driven to scan the inner surface of the ring gauge. The direction calibration of the laser beams can be completed by the sensors’ distance information and corresponding data processing method. The corresponding error sources are analyzed and the validity of the method is verified. After the calibration, the measurement error of the inner diameter measuring device reduced from ±25 μm to ±15 μm and the relative error was not more than 0.011%.

A Fast Measuring Method for the Inner Diameter of Coaxial Holes

A new method for fast diameter measurement of coaxial holes is studied. The paper describes a multi-layer measuring rod that installs a single laser displacement sensor (LDS) on each layer. This method is easy to implement by rotating the measuring rod, and immune from detecting the measuring rod’s rotation angles, so all diameters of coaxial holes can be calculated by sensors’ values. While revolving, the changing angles of each sensor’s laser beams are approximately equal in the rod’s radial direction so that the over-determined nonlinear equations of multi-layer holes for fitting circles can be established. The mathematical model of the measuring rod is established, all parameters that affect the accuracy of measurement are analyzed and simulated. In the experiment, the validity of the method is verified, the inner diameter measuring precision of 28 μm is achieved by 20 μm linearity LDS. The measuring rod has advantages of convenient operation and easy manufacture, according to the actual diameters of coaxial holes, and also the varying number of holes, LDS’s mounting location can be adjusted for different parts. It is convenient for rapid diameter measurement in industrial use.

Multi-Sensor Registration in High-Precision CMM Based on a Composite Standard

Registration is a critical step in multi-sensor dimensional measurement. As the accuracy of registration directly impacts the quality of final results, a reference sphere as a common standard is problematic in high-precision registration. In this paper, a novel method based on a composite standard is proposed to fuse the multiple heterogeneous sensors in high-precision coordinate measuring machines (CMMs), which will void the drawbacks of a reference sphere. The composite standard consists of a cone and cylinder, which share a same central axis. To ensure high precision in the submicron range, or better, the standard is manufactured by an ultra-precision machine. Three features of the composite standard are inspected by three sensors: a video camera (VC), a tactile probe (TP), and a chromatic confocal displacement sensor (CC). All features will concentrate on a common point through which the relation between the three sensors will be obtained. The errors of each measurement were analyzed theoretically, and simulations and real experiments were carried out to verify the composite standard. This study demonstrates that the proposed registration method is stable and that the standard has potential use for the registration of multiple sensors in high-precision dimensional measurement.

A method of detection to the grinding wheel layer thickness based on computer vision

This paper proposed a method of detection to the grinding wheel layer thickness based on computer vision. A camera is used to capture images of grinding wheel layer on the whole circle. Forward lighting and back lighting are used to enables a clear image to be acquired. Image processing is then executed on the images captured, which consists of image preprocessing, binarization and subpixel subdivision. The aim of binarization is to help the location of a chord and the corresponding ring width. After subpixel subdivision, the thickness of the grinding layer can be calculated finally. Compared with methods usually used to detect grinding wheel wear, method in this paper can directly and quickly get the information of thickness. Also, the eccentric error and the error of pixel equivalent are discussed in this paper.

Research on key technology of the verification system of steel rule based on vision measurement

The steel rule plays an important role in quantity transmission. However, the traditional verification method of steel rule based on manual operation and reading brings about low precision and low efficiency. A machine vison based verification system of steel rule is designed referring to JJG1-1999-Verificaiton Regulation of Steel Rule [1]. What differentiates this system is that it uses a new calibration method of pixel equivalent and decontaminates the surface of steel rule. Experiments show that these two methods fully meet the requirements of the verification system. Measuring results strongly prove that these methods not only meet the precision of verification regulation, but also improve the reliability and efficiency of the verification system.

Automatic measuring method of catenary geometric parameters based on laser scanning and imaging

The catenary geometric parameters are important factors that affect the safe operation of the railway. Among them, height of conductor and stagger value are two key parameters. At present, the two parameters are mainly measured by laser distance sensor and angle measuring device with manual aiming method, with low measuring speed and poor efficiency. In order to improve the speed and accuracy of catenary geometric parameters detection, a new automatic measuring method of contact wire’s parameters based on laser scanning and imaging is proposed. The DLT method is used to calibrate the parameters of the linear array CCD camera. The direction of the scanning laser beam and the spatial coordinate of the starting point of the beam are calculated by geometric method. Finally, the equation is established using the calibrated parameters and the imaginary coordinates of the imaging point, to solve the spatial coordinate of the measured point on the contact wire, so as to calculate height of conductor and stagger value. Different from the traditional hand-held laser phase measuring method, the new method can achieve measurement of the catenary geometric parameters automatically without manual aiming. Through measurement results, accuracy can reach 2mm.

Parallelism measurement for base plate of standard artifact with multiple tactile approaches

Nowadays, as workpieces become more precise and more specialized which results in more sophisticated structures and higher accuracy for the artifacts, higher requirements have been put forward for measuring accuracy and measuring methods. As an important method to obtain the size of workpieces, coordinate measuring machine (CMM) has been widely used in many industries. In order to achieve the calibration of a self-developed CMM, it is found that the parallelism of the base plate used for fixing the standard artifact is an important factor which affects the measurement accuracy in the process of studying self-made high-precision standard artifact. And aimed to measure the parallelism of the base plate, by using the existing high-precision CMM, gauge blocks, dial gauge and marble platform with the tactile approach, three methods for parallelism measurement of workpieces are employed, and comparisons are made within the measurement results. The results of experiments show that the final accuracy of all the three methods is able to reach micron level and meets the measurement requirements. Simultaneously, these three approaches are suitable for different measurement conditions which provide a basis for rapid and high-precision measurement under different equipment conditions.

Relative position calibration of multi-LDS in shaft center measurement system

In the center measuring device consisting of a plurality of laser triangular displacement sensors (LDS) for coaxiality measurement of shaft, it fits the center coordinate of the shaft by obtaining the coordinates of the outer contour, this poses a higher requirement for the relative position calibration accuracy of the multi-LDS. Aiming at the positional relationship between multi-LDS, the CMM is leaded into the calibration of the center measuring device. Randomly moves a standard column and reading the length values of multi-LDS, combined with the known center coordinates of the column from CMM, to establish the over-determined nonlinear equations, the angle and starting position of the laser beam of each LDS in the measuring device are calculated. The experiment result indicates that measuring uncertainty of the system is 30 μm, this proved the validity and feasibility of the multi-LDS center measuring device in the use of coaxiality measurement of shaft. As a result, it is found that the proposed calibration method is accuracy to the multi-LDS center measuring device and can be implemented easily.