New technology for online detection of intelligent product surface

ISRA VISION's SMASH inspection system can quickly and efficiently "scan" the surface quality of flat products, and has the ability to comprehensively detect surface defects, helping to improve efficiency and save costs. The

key solution SMASH inspection system provided by ISRA VISION can quickly and efficiently "scan" the surface quality of flat products. The innovative event capture technology can truly record any failure of the machine. The technology can also automatically send warning messages to production managers and automatically analyze to find the root cause of the defect. The

SMASH surface inspection system is designed with standardized components and has the ability to comprehensively detect product surface defects, covering a variety of substrates and material surfaces, such as plastic films, foils, velvet fabrics, paper, cardboard, metal, printed flexible packaging, folding boxes, labels, RFID memory cards and flexographic printed circuit boards, and even flexible solar cells and organic optoelectronic products.

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Event capture technology with automatic alarm

Event capture is not new, however, so far, online detection systems need to be triggered by signals sent by external hardware, or they need to take simple corrective measures to obtain grayscale values ​​when trying to record terminal-type faults. In order to describe the analysis results about the real cause of the defect, it is necessary to watch the stored information of continuous shooting and make manual evaluation. This is considered to be a very laborious and inefficient process.

ISRA has developed a new event capture system, referred to as the "EC system". Also in the application of the converter steelmaking industry, it provides the ability to automatically monitor any faults and can issue alarm signals according to pre-defined settings. Therefore, the EC camera system can be used to observe, record and analyze key process points.

Schematic diagram of event capture and flat product detection

All video signals are stored in a time-sequential and position-synchronous manner, allowing manufacturers to extract all video signals and place them at a specified synchronization position on the EC detection terminal. The system thus provides a synchronized view of the same section of product at key points in production. For flat product images taken from different EC cameras, only synchronized, parallel images displayed at the same position on the flat product can accurately describe the defect sequence detected by the system and its causes. In addition, automatic alarms can be predefined. Intervention on specific targets in this way helps prevent serious product defects, increase machine operating time and improve the overall quality of the product.

In addition, the detected defective areas can be automatically marked on the product image, making subsequent analysis fast and convenient, greatly saving time.

Assigning video signals to defect data

When the SMASH inspection system is used in combination with an event capture system, it can bring greater advantages. In particular, the inspection system is installed after the production equipment to detect the quality of the products produced. It can record and distinguish all quality-related flat product defects. The defect data, defect images and the frequency of these defects allow manufacturers to extract considerable useful information.

The advantage of combining an inspection system with an event capture system is that the video signal recorded by the EC camera can be displayed and aligned with the defects detected by the inspection system. Therefore, in addition to the information about the defects and their classification provided by the SMASH system, manufacturers also receive the video signal of the defects. In conjunction with an event capture system, it is even possible to determine more quickly where the defects occurred and why, or to find the machine failure that initially caused the defects. In this way, not only conventional defect analysis is possible, but also direct online information about the origin of the defects and their causes is provided. Users can even use this defect matching tool to track the development trend of defects even further.

Optimizing the entire process chain

If PrintSTAR, a 100% online print inspection system, is combined with the SMASH system, additional advantages are obtained. By accessing and using information in a common database, the inspection results obtained in film production can be directly applied to the current printing process, so that defective parts can be individually processed at an early stage by taking corresponding adjustment measures. In general, foils and films of poor quality are no longer processed further, which significantly reduces the amount of waste in the printing process and greatly improves the productivity of the entire processing chain. The

Flat Product Quality Assessment System complements the SMASH system when the quality of the inspected flat products needs to be evaluated. With warning and alarm settings, the system immediately provides the manufacturer with an accurate picture of the product quality. The user can define up to 100 quality parameters that relate to the development trend and number of defects. The defects are then calculated based on one or a batch of defect types. Based on the defect information detected by the SMASH system, the Flat Product Quality Assessment System analyzes this information reflecting the quality status and provides a breakdown of the faults according to the predefined quality standards. For example, green indicates acceptable quality, yellow is a warning about the quality status, and red is an alarm. The machine operator can quickly take corrective measures to ensure the overall quality of the product.

Higher efficiency

The SMASH sheet processing integration tool can be used to evaluate the quality of the sheet. When sheets are produced from web products, once these sheets have been cut longitudinally or transversely and covered with protective films, they are usually no longer subject to automated inspection.

With this tool, the quality of individual sheets can be assessed before they are cut to size. The assessment results can be divided into 3 levels: acceptable, unacceptable and marginally acceptable. The classification of the products before cutting into a certain length and width makes the assessment so special that the manufacturer always has accurate information about the quality of the sheet products. In the subsequent cutting process, even further cuts can be made to prevent defective parts from entering the next operation process. Based on the information from the inspection system, poor quality sheets can be diverted from the production line, thus avoiding customer complaints. (end)