Developing a flexible range sensing system for industrial inspection applications

This thesis describes the development of a range sensing system. The goal was to create a range sensor that is robust and flexible so that a number of applications within the forest products manufacturing environment can be addressed. Features of the system include: the capability of producing spatially registered image pairs of range and intensity, the ability to generate both range and intensity very quickly, the applicability to a wide variety of industrial applications, the ability to handle large depth-of-field range sensing problems, the ability to do real-time data processing, and the capability to do extensive system diagnostics under complete software control. A triangulation based plane-of-light optical method is employed to extract range information. The research shows that this method suits range sensing applications where conveyor belts are involved. An in-depth study of the triangulation method is included. In the study it shows that this method also supports large depth-of-field range sensing. A dedicated signal processing hardware, built on the Micro Channel interface, performs pipelined image processing and generates range and intensity images in a spatially registered form. The hardware is designed to support several modes of operation, for the purpose of facilitating optical adjustments and calibrations. The hardware self-diagnostic facility is also included in the design. A memory management scheme is provided that facilitates real-time data processing of the range and intensity images. The experiments show that this scheme provides a real-time environment for software processing. This thesis also contains a theory exploring the limitations of the measurement accuracy of the range detection algorithm employed in the prototype system. The maximum data generation rate of the prototype system is 380 range/intensity lines per second at 128 range/intensity pixels per line. Several proposals toward future work are included that aim at improving the speed as well as the measurement accuracy of the prototype system.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Electrical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

1993

Author dc:creator

• Hou, Yoshen

Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair

• Conners, Richard W.
• Kline, D. Earl

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Abbott, A. Lynn
• Schmoldt, Daniel L.

• range sensing systems

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

etd-07102009-040351

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/43623