An industrial vision system to inspect disc brakes has been developed by Stemmer Imaging, in collaboration with Neupro-Solutions, for Knorr-Bremse, a manufacturer of disc brakes for commercial vehicles. Featuring line laser illumination, three cameras and intelligent imaging software, the system inspects the brake assemblies and checks the correct mounting by comparing the results to stored data. This ensures correct and safe operation in the vehicle.
The Knorr-Bremse manufacturing facility produces 1,200 different brake types for use in commercial vehicles, ranging from 6-ton to 44-ton trucks, buses and towing vehicles through to the trailer sector. The inspection system allows inspection of 64 different characteristics.
The system utilises three AVT cameras equipped with Schneider Kreuznach lenses and two line lasers from Z-Laser. The automated inspection is carried out using Sherlock image processing software from Teledyne Dalsa. A Neupro-Sherlock plugin for Oracle transfers the data to the database. Both image data and inspection data are archived in the database and then transferred to a higher-level control.
The disc brakes leave production mounted on a workpiece carrier and are checked with great precision in a dedicated inspection area. The entire measurement process including laser triangulation, pattern recognition, colour recognition and measurement of components is carried out within milliseconds to determine whether the brake is correctly mounted according to the specified parts list and assembly guidelines held in the database. If a defect is detected, the database contains information as to whether it can be eliminated by reworking.
