Real-time image processing system for automated visual inspection applications

In many potential machine vision applications, the biggest constraint to its industrial use is the cost of the image processing hardware. In fact, there are many visual tasks performed by human operators that could be easily automated. However, it is very difficult to find in the market a vision system with the adequate relation between cost and performance. Most of the image processing systems need too much time to process one image, or have a very high cost. We present an architecture that was developed for surveillance purposes and that we are applying to several applications, namely to the semi-conductor industry and to flexible manufacture. The hardware was conceived in a modular approach with real time performance in each module. Cascading of several modules can produce different image processing functions with an image or data, being generated in every frame of video. The low cost of the hardware together with its very high performance, allow many different industrial applications in particular in the field of industrial automation. The results obtained with the industrial prototypes are presented in two applications and other possible applications are in progress.© (1993) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.