Development of a Machine Vision System for Automotive Part - Car Seat Frame Inspection 2006-01-0294

Meeting the growing demand deadlines, reducing the production cost and upgrading the quality control measurements are the reasons why the automotive part manufacturers are venturing into automation. Attaining these objectives is impossible with human inspection for many reasons. Accordingly, the introduction of machine vision system purposely for car seat frame inspection is presented in this study as an alternative for human inspection. This study is designed to meet the demands, features and specifications of car seat frame manufacturing companies in striving for increased throughput of better quality. More specifically, this computer-based inspection system is designed to perform quality measures to detect holes, nuts and welding spots on every car seat frame in real time and ensuring these portions to be intact, precise and in proper place. In this study, the NI Vision Builder software for Automatic Inspection is used as a solution in configuring the aimed quality measurements. These quality measurement techniques for visual inspection are optimized through qualitative analysis and simulation of human tolerance on inspecting car seat frames. Furthermore, this study exemplifies the incorporation of the optimized vision inspection environment to the pre-inspection and post-inspection phases using LabVIEW software.