From April 23 to April 26, 2024, the focus was on quality assurance. At Control, the international trade fair for quality assurance in Stuttgart, 475 international exhibitors presented modern quality assurance and how manufacturing companies can optimize their production processes for the future. In keeping with tradition, the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology was represented by the Center for Vision, Automation & Control.
Embedded in the special show "Non-Contact Measurement Technology" of the Fraunhofer Vision Business Unit, the experts of the AIT research group High-Performance Vision Systems (HVS) presented their innovative and future-oriented 3D measurement technology for quality inspection in manufacturing processes. The inline 3D microscopy method ici:microscopy is suitable for the inspection of the finest structures at high inspection speeds. In the spirit of the special show, the experts explained the underlying technology as well as the special features, advantages and limitations of the new measuring option to the entrepreneurs, trade visitors and other interested parties. With this powerful inspection technology and their technical expertise, they generated a great deal of interest among customers.
International visibility
"The show is an important anchor point for us. As a scientific organization that conducts industry-oriented research, it is crucial to understand what the market needs. Here we can exchange ideas with international users, manufacturers, customers and partners, and evaluate opportunities for collaboration. At the end of the day, it's all about profitability, competitiveness and the future viability of the company. That is why we are now going one step further, from quality inspection to controlling the production process in order to ensure quality and thus conserve resources. Here, too, we want to play a pioneering role," says Markus Clabian, head of the AIT HVS research group. "That the AIT stands for innovation and is a reliable partner is shown by the fact that international companies come to us with very specific questions for which others have not yet been able to offer a solution. We now have a high profile in Europe and beyond," adds Petra Thanner, an expert in high-performance image processing and the thematic coordinator responsible for the further development of 2D and 3D inspection methods.
The tiniest defects at 40 million 3D pixels per second
The new ici:microscopy technology presented by the AIT experts is an inline 3D microscopy method based on the Inline Computational Imaging (ICI) algorithms developed at the AIT. The microscope is suitable for fast inspection tasks with extremely high resolutions (up to 700 nm). It uses the natural transport motion of the object for simultaneous 2D and 3D surface detection under different viewing and illumination directions, mimicking human inspection such as tilting the object and changing the viewing perspective. Intelligent algorithms are used to detect and evaluate the finest changes in the surface. "Inline 3D detection and measurement is becoming an increasingly important part of modern production processes. High-precision manufacturing processes and the increasing miniaturization of parts and components require resolutions in the µm range, which also increases the need for fast inline 3D microscopy solutions. Despite numerous developments in this field, there are still only a few inline solutions that meet the manufacturing industry's requirements for accuracy and process reliability, and are also suitable for use with flexible batch sizes and high production speeds. With ici:microscopy, we are closing this gap," says Lukas Traxler, who has been primarily responsible for the development of the AIT technology.
International meeting point for the industry
A total of 13,149 trade visitors attended this year's 36th Control. With the special show "Non-Contact Measurement Technology" the Fraunhofer Vision Division wants to contribute to a broader acceptance of contactless measurement technology.
