Sensor based robotics for fully automated inspection of bores at low volume high variant parts

Bores and internal threads play a critical role as integral parts of connections, bearings and engines, hydraulic and pneumatic systems. Defective bore surfaces lead to increased friction and abrasion, leakage, and reduced stability. Therefore, industry demands ever higher quality of components´ bore surfaces. Today industrial automation is limited to high part volumes. Current systems miss a high flexibility or are mainly driven by human interaction and control. Therefore the main target of this work is to develop an automatic system for rapid and flexible 100% surface inspection of bores with diameters from 4 to 50 mm. Further a method for the detection and localization of bores on arbitrary metallic objects has to be developed as well as the image processing for the inspection with a vision system has to be done. The main focus is on easy operating of the system achieved with rapid programming for the user. The paper describes the system, in overview and detail, and shows the promising results of the experiments and a public long-term demonstration (4 days) during an industrial fair.