Press Release

26.06.07Sixteen Eyes Can See Better Than Two

AICON 3D’s TubeInspect tube measuring system with digital cameras by Allied Vision Technologies wins German Industry Innovation Award 2007.

The German Industry Innovation Award is bestowed annually by the German “Initiative Mittelstand” (Initiative for small and medium-sized companies) and the publishing house Huber. An independent jury of experts and technical journalists evaluate the products with respect to their degree of innovation and their value of benefit for small and medium-sized companies. This year, TubeInspect, AICON’s optical tube measuring system, won the award in the category Optical Technologies. This system, relying on digital cameras from Allied Vision Technologies, is successfully implemented in the automotive industry in particular.

Complex Geometry, Highest Quality Requirements
Like a network of arteries, they ensure power and safety in cars: pipes and tubes – like those used for fuel or brake fluid. When installing up to 12 different lines in a vehicle, every millimeter counts; for one thing because space underneath the vehicle is tight; for another because mistakes in installation – for instance of a brake fluid line – can have detrimental consequences for driving safety.

The tubes, which are delivered in fixed dimensions and are shaped into complex patterns with the help of bending machines, are therefore subject to the strict quality criteria of the automotive industry. For that reason, the quality check must be precise but also fast and uncomplicated, so that the correction data can be transferred to the pipe bending machine as quickly as possible.

Digital quality inspection: fast and precise
Traditionally, the automotive industry used mechanical gauges for quality control; the shaped pipe was inserted and checked visually. However, this inspection process proved to be extremely inflexible and cost-intensive, since the gauges had to be manufactured for each tube and vehicle type and had to be altered for even the smallest changes in geometry.

An innovative solution for measurement of tube geometry and quality inspection in pipe production was developed by AICON 3D of Germany: the tube measurement system TubeInspect. The system works with 16 high-resolution digital cameras from Allied Vision Technologies. The line to be measured is simply placed in the optical measurement cell, and its geometry is digitally determined via the cameras. TubeInspect measures tubes with diameters from 4 to 200 mm (from a fraction of an inch up to 0.22 in.).

The measurement process is extremely fast: The measurement of a line with 15 bends takes about 10 to 20 seconds. The results of measurement can be recorded in a database and documented during the process. Once the data has been recorded, the software does a target/actual comparison. Variances are displayed in color on screen with the aid of a curved surface tolerance calculation. If the tube measured needs corrections, the system can transmit them via a server directly to the CNC program of the tube-bending machine.

AICON and Allied Vision Technologies: a Success-Story
Thanks to the high resolution of the AVT Marlin digital cameras plus parallel imaging from different angles, outstanding precision is achieved: Bends between 5 and 180 degrees, as well as complex bend-in-bend forms, can be recorded without problems.

“The internal memory and delayed data transmission (“deferred mode”) of the Marlin camera from Allied Vision Technologies are especially well suited for TubeInspect“, declares Günter Suilmann, Head of Sales at AICON. “In this way, even thin and flexible lines can be recorded synchronously by all cameras, even if they are still moving. The FireWire interface (IEEE 1394a) also offers substantial advantages: frame grabber and multiplexer are not needed, which not only simplifies the system architecture but also cuts costs. In addition, cameras with high-image resolution can be used simultaneously, which enhances measurement precision.”

Frank Grube, President & CEO of Allied Vision Technologies congratulated AICON for the award: “We are very happy that AICON won the Industry Innovation Award 2007. We have been working closely with AICON for years now and we are extremely proud that our digital camera technologies contributed to this success”.

Thanks to its precision and the fast transmission of corrections to the bending machines, the TubeInspect system has proven itself valuable in the automotive industry for several years. It is currently being successfully used at about 40 different worldwide locations by leading automotive manufacturers and suppliers, and is also being used in interesting application areas in the aerospace industry.