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Realtime vision-based surface defect inspection of steel balls

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Abstract

In the proposed system for online inspection of steel balls, a diffuse illumination is developed to enhance defect appearances and produce high quality images. To fully view the entire sphere, a novel unfolding method is put forward based on geometrical analysis, which only requires one-dimensional movement of the balls and a pair of cameras to capture images from different directions. Moreover, a realtime inspection algorithm is customized to improve both accuracy and efficiency. The precision and recall of the sample set were 87.7% and 98%, respectively. The average time cost on image processing and analysis for a steel ball was 47 ms, and the total time cost was less than 200 ms plus the cost of image acquisition and balls’ movement. The system can sort 18 000 balls per hour with a spatial resolution higher than 0.01 mm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Precision Measuring Technology and Instrument, School of Precision Instrument and Opto-Electronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Zhong Wang  (王 仲), Qian Xing  (邢 芊), Luhua Fu  (付鲁华) & Hong Sun  (孙 虹)

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  1. Zhong Wang  (王 仲)
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  2. Qian Xing  (邢 芊)
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  3. Luhua Fu  (付鲁华)
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  4. Hong Sun  (孙 虹)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luhua Fu  (付鲁华).

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Wang Zhong, born in 1953, male, Prof.

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Wang, Z., Xing, Q., Fu, L. et al. Realtime vision-based surface defect inspection of steel balls. Trans. Tianjin Univ. 21, 76–82 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12209-015-2452-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12209-015-2452-6

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