Inspection System

Sensor Review

ISSN: 0260-2288

Article publication date: 1 December 2002

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Keywords

Citation

Rigelsford, J. (2002), "Inspection System", Sensor Review, Vol. 22 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2002.08722dad.013

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2002, MCB UP Limited


Inspection System

Inspection System

Applicant: Georgia Tech Research Corporation, USAPatent number: US6,269,179Publication date: 31 July 2001Title: Inspection system and method for bond detection and validation of surface mount devices using sensor fusion and active perceptionKeywords: Sensor fusion, Inspection, Patents

This invention relates to an inspection system and method for bond detection and validation of surface mount devices using vision and infrared sensors, combined with a technique for discriminating and detecting solder joint defects.

The patent describes a hybrid surface mount component inspection system which includes both vision and infrared sensors inspection techniques. These techniques are used to determine the presence of surface mount components on a printed wiring board, and the quality of solder joints of the surface mount components. Data level sensor fusion is used to combine data from two infrared sensors to obtain independent thermal signatures of the solder joints, and feature level sensor fusion from gray scale CCD cameras. Assembly and process inspection information can thus be actively obtained from any number of sensors and used to determine production defects.

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