Automatic Coordinate Measuring Machine Inspection
Abstract In many industrial applications, such as product prototype development, automation of inspection process can greatly improve product quality and product development cycle, time. This paper discusses a development of a vision aided automatic inspection using Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM). We seek to integrate the flexibility afforded by computer vision systems with the precision of numerically controlled coordinate measuring machines to achieve a fully automatic and reliable inspection of the industrial parts. The 3-D design information and part specification from computer-aided design file is used for inspection point placement and CMM path planning. The proposed system demonstrates that optimal collision-free inspection paths can be efficiently generated for geometrically complex parts consisting of multiply intersecting features. This is made possible by using iterative subdivision of surfaces for point placement coupled with, efficient 3-D collision avoidance and path planning. The paper discusses different algorithms used, and presents experimental results.