In a short period of time MSTVision GmbH has developed a powerful and flexible Robot Vision Module for a Chinese customer.

The goal was to develop a fully-automated system for evaluating the quality of welding joints of car bodies. For this a contact measuring sensor is moved by a robot.

Before placing the sensor on the relevant welding spot, a position correction of the sensor is necessary. The customer came to the conclusion through market research and  pre-tests that established robot vision systems are not suitable for their application.

A crucial element are the extremely unfavourable contrast properties of some types of steel, as well as the distortions on surfaces with a complex shape (interfering contours, reflections, contamination, …).

Based on the customer’s requirements, MSTVision GmbH developed a design and carried out a feasibility study. By using the ingenious combination of established robot vision technologies with “radiometric stereo” algorithms and implementing extensively configurable segmentation algorithms, all the customer’s samples could be evaluated at a high quality. Even on uncooperative surfaces, reproducibility in the area of 0.2mm could be shown. For image capture, evaluation and transfer of the data to the SPS, less than 500ms are required.

After being awarded the contract, MSTVision GmbH developed both the camera module including  mechanical parts and the HALCON based algorithms. In September 2016 the components have been integrated it into the customer’s test setup in China.