Machine vision based quality assurance of cutting inserts

For mechanical machining different cutting tools with cutting inserts are used. According to this, the German and international demand is very large. To satisfy the quality requirements of the customers, there are several measurement and testing tasks in the life cycle of cutting inserts. In this context this article discusses image processing approaches to automate the visual and screening inspections coating colour inspection, classification of the cutting insert contour and chip forming geometry as well as the measurement of the cutting edge radius.