Application of machine vision in improving safety and reliability for gear profile measurement

This research presents a camera-based measurement system which is developed to improve the safety and reliability for gear profile measurement system. Gear profile measurement is vital in precision engineering. To increase the safety and reliability of the precision measurement, application of camera or vision is very useful. Automatic control is also necessary to increase reliability of the measurement system. Normally, gear profiles are measured using contact-based stylus system. During gear profile measurement, human monitoring is required to avoid accident and sometimes we may face great danger regarding safety of our body especially eyes. The stylus is sharp and thin and if it is collided to the gear teeth there is high probability of breaking and scattering the stylus tip. To save time, if the measurement probe scans the gear shape with a speed of 10 mm/s then the issue of safety should be considered highly. The traditional methods for gear measurement are either time consuming or expensive. This paper presents the successful implementation of the camera system in precision measurement which saves time and increases safety and reliability of the measurement with the increment of the measurement performance by increasing production rate. Color-based stylus tracking algorithm is implemented to acquire better reliability of the complete system. Thus, the developed system with vision enhances safety and reliability of the precision measurement.