Automated Surface Defect Detection using Area Scan Camera

Abstract

This research comprises the design and fabrication of an automated surface defect detection system in which the defected part is automatically rejected. A special purpose rejection mechanism is designed in a manner to whether accept the defect free parts or reject the defected parts. The inspection vision system adopted in the design is an area scan camera, which works in conjunction with the MATLAB image acquisition tool. The control process is achieved via a PIC16F84A microcontroller, where it controls the image capturing and the defected part rejection mechanism. To validate the performance of this designed system, three types of plates were used, namely, defect free, punch defected and crack defected. Results showed that all the defected plates were rejected thus insuring the high efficiency of the system.

Keywords: area scan camera, inspection vision system, surface detection