Digital Laser Vision in the Aerospace Industry

This paper is a case study of a successful application of a particular type of machine vision system to an aerospace manufacturing operation. The task for the vision system is to find holes very accurately. The system performs this task using a novel combination of laser triangulation and grayscale area analysis. Using a custom sensor, incorporating a high resolution digital camera, structured and unstructured illumination, together with advanced image processing algorithms has resulted in a measurement system which has excellent accuracy and repeatability.