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EXPANSIV - Electronic newsletter highlights

May 17, 2002

Welcome to the second edition of the EXPANSIV electronic newsletter - the newsletter for Machine Vision in Europe.

Issued every two months, the EXPANSIV Newsletter brings you news of industrial applications of Machine Vision.

The rapid reduction in the price of both computer systems and digital cameras combined with advances in image-processing techniques, means that low-cost machine-vision systems are now an affordable reality in many industrial sectors, and companies are getting real benefits.

Highlights

Better equipment for more valuable sewer inspections

The ISAAC project uses advanced image processing to improve the inspection and surveying of sewage pipelines. It aims to enable faster and cheaper detection and classification of defects such as cracks.
More: www.spt.fi.eutist select 'Business Cases' then select 'Services'.

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Producing cork stoppers non-stop

The CORKINSPECT system will automate, simplify and improve the process of cork stopper control. It will provide a means of building its own inspection and control rules. The ultimate business objective is to introduce savings by automating the inspection process and improve quality through consistent quality control. More: www.spt.fi.eutist select 'Business Cases' then select 'Wood'.

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Fur's better Finnish

The FUR project is about colour sorting of fox skins. The manual pelt grading of fox furs is an extremely labour-intensive process that also requires a long training period. Through the use of an automatic inspection system, accuracy of fur grading has improved from 85% to 97% reducing the work in the final quality sorting by 80%. More: www.spt.fi.eutist select 'Business Cases' then select 'Textiles and Clothing'.

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Better equipment for more valuable sewer inspections

The ISAAC project uses advanced image processing to improve the inspection and surveying of sewage pipelines. It aims to enable faster and cheaper detection and classification of defects such as cracks.
More: www.spt.fi.eutist select 'Business Cases' then select 'Services'.

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Increased security using modern cognitive imaging methods

In the FENCE GUARD project the idea of applying fibre optical components in controlling the security of fence perimeters is updated by using modern cognitive imaging methods. More: www.spt.fi.eutist select 'Business Cases' then select 'Services.

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The sun rises on a new industry

VISO -a project about quality control in the manufacture of solar cells.
Renewable energy will be a key technology this century. The world market in photovoltaics, the direct conversion of sunlight into electrical power, has grown by 25% per year over the last 5 years. The VISOLAR system addresses quality management in the production of crystalline silicon solar cells and modules. It is a trainable, visual-inspection system that can reduce breakage rates, increase throughput and improve quality of photovoltaic modules. More: www.spt.fi.eutist select 'Business Cases' then select 'Manufacturing'.

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An on-line optimiser and resource manager for manufacturing industries

The objective of the OPTAMS project is to design, create and implement an on-line optimisation tool with an integrated resource management system that is directly capable controlling machines and personnel. This will solve production process problems for those companies that have strongly differentiated and flexible production such as SMEs. More: www.spt.fi.eutist select 'Business Cases' then select 'Manufacturing'.

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Automatic control of the profiling process of cutting tools

The VISIONGRIP project will show how an advanced high-resolution vision system and image processing approaches in connection with novel CA-technologies can be fast integrated and adapted in a grinding machine for profiling process of cutting tools. More: www.spt.fi.eutist select 'Business Cases' then select 'Services'.

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Degrees more freedom for machine tools

The machine tools market is exhibiting a growing demand for highly dynamic systems due to the firm trend towards the use of five-axis, high-speed machining. This has strongly increased interest in the use of the so-called Hexapod systems as an alternative to the more conventional serial machines. HEXANUM is a recently developed control system for Hexapod machine tools that uses high performance computer technology for the real-time processing of large quantities of data. More: www.spt.fi.eutist select 'Business Cases' then select 'Manufacturing'.

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An attractive use of technology

NEOVISION is a new product based on automatic visual inspection to improve the production of very high strength magnets. It will give significant reductions in production costs. It will deliver a more consistent and standardised quality of the finished product giving a further and clear cost benefit to the final customer. More: www.spt.fi.eutist select 'Business Cases' then select 'Manufacturing'.

Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC)