The Use of Vision and Touch Sensors for Dimensional Inspection Tasks

The purpose of dimensional inspection is to verify the geometry of a manufactured part. A ma-chined part is either accepted or rejected based upon the sensed errors between the object and its specified geometry as defined in a CAD (Computer Aided Design) model or other model data-base. Various sensors can be used for inspection tasks. The use of multiple sensors is relatively new in this application and coordinate measuring machine (CMM) manufacturers have only re-cently begun supplying machines that provide multiple sensor capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the current use of vision and touch sensors for inspection tasks and to suggest alternative strategies for the use of these sensors to increase their capabilities