Influence of vibration induced disturbances in an automatic inspection cell

Abstract

In the modern manufacturing industry, quality assurance is important. Over the last few years, the interest in automatic inspection has increased and automatic non-destructive testing (NDT) has been introduced. A general automated inspection cell consists of a mechanized system for scanning and a computer system for automatic analysis of the data. In the manufacturing industry, it is preferable to use industrial robots as the scanning equipment since they offer great flexibility, excellent support organization and the in-house know-how is normally high. Another benefit is that a robot can carry different inspection equipment and an inspection cell can therefore include more than one NDT method. For an automatic analysis, high quality of the resulting data is essential. However, a non-stable condition of the NDT sensor mounted on the robotic arm may influence the results. This paper focuses on the influence of the vibration induced disturbances on the results from an NDT system. Vibration amplitude of a point to point robot movement on the robotic arm is measured. The influence of vibration disturbances on the inspection results are evaluated on the thermal images from a thermography system mounted on a six axis industrial robot. The thermal images taken by the system during the movement and after the stop of the robot are evaluated, and the influence of the vibration in these two situations is considered. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.