Development and implementation of visual feedback technology in automotive windscreen manufacture

Manual forming of automotive windscreens relies heavily on the skill and diligence of the operator. The ease with which windscreens can be formed varies greatly. Some screens virtually bend themselves whilst those with large side and cross curvature demand the operator’s attention at every phase of the forming process. In mixed production runs, screen quality can vary markedly from one run to the next. Consequently, recent developments in the automotive glass manufacturing industry have sought to automate the bending process by reducing or eliminating the operator’s judgement during forming. Two approaches that have been applied to the problem include artificial intelligence control systems which use a number of production parameters to predict the correct bending sequence for each screen and machine vision which continuously measures the curvature of the glass as it deforms into the mould.