Robot Vision in Industrial Assembly and Quality Control Processes

Robots and Export Quality

“…For instance, laser cutting can make precise cuts to within 10 micrometers (0.01 millimeters), depending on the laser wavelength, and laser guiding can enable extremely accurate robot movement and positioning, often to within micrometers (see Figure 2). Similarly, sensor and vision inspection devices incorporated with some robots can also allow the machines to identify flaws in products across a number of dimensions including color, surface finish, and abrasions, see Figure 3 (Herakovic et al, 2011;Herakovic, 2010). 8 Robots designed to carry out quality control inspections (see Figure 3) can also help reduce the numbers of defective products that reach the customer while at the same time reducing the need for quality inspection staff (Argote and Goodman 1985).…”

“…In contrast, tasks that are either less repetitive or have larger error tolerances (such as packing boxes) are often still performed by humans, even in high-income economies. Many robots are explicitly designed to achieve greater accuracy and can include sensors that allow the machines themselves to identify product defects (Herakovic, 2010;Herakovic et al, 2011). The widespread diffusion of robotics in manufacturing production may lead to increases in the quality of exported products.…”

Industrial robotics and product(ion) quality

“…A number of robots are able to carry out quality control inspections that can help reduce the numbers of flawed products, while at the same time reducing the need for quality inspection staff (Argote and Goodman, 1985). Sensory and vison devices incorporated within robotics allow the machines to identify flaws in products across a number of dimensions including colour, surface finish, and abrasions (Herakovic et al, 2011;Herakovic, 2010). The automotive industry, for example, relies on robots to monitor quality through a host of production processes such as defaults in body panels, uneven paint finishes, breaks in adhesive sealants, irregular welding beads, all of which are found to increase the quality of the end product (Bogue 2013).…”

Robotic assembly of threaded fasteners in a non-structured environment

“…The developments of assembly concept such as fully flexible assembly system (F-FAS), reported by Finetto [6], and hybrid flexible assembly systems (H-FAS), proposed by Rosati [7], deliver effective solution for improving small batch productions requiring frequent reconfigurations. However, as stated by Herakovic [8], modern industrial assembly processes need advanced robot-based object detection, recognition, and grasping techniques to assemble randomly positioned objects in unstructured environments. The recognition and localisation of objects located in random locations require 2D or 3D visual perception of the objects depending on the application.…”