With the development of Industry 4.0, an increasing number of automated devices have appeared in factories. Among them, machine vision inspection technology is a new type of visual inspection technology based on computer vision research. Today, as industrial automation continues to advance, machine vision technology is being applied more widely in industrial production and is gaining increasing recognition and favor among users.

In modern industrial automation production, machine vision is used in a wide range of applications involving inspection, measurement, and part recognition, such as power battery electrode inspection, automatic assembly integrity inspection, barcode and character recognition on product packaging, printed quality inspection of beverage bottle caps, and component dimension inspection. These applications share the common characteristics of continuous large-scale production and high requirements for appearance quality.

Why is machine vision inspection technology favored by the automation industry?

Usually, such highly repetitive and intelligent tasks are accomplished by the naked eye. However, in some special cases, such as precise and rapid measurements of tiny sizes, color recognition, shape matching, etc., the naked eye is unable to perform continuously and stably, and it is also difficult to use other physical quantity sensors to carry out these tasks. With the intensification of industry competition, manufacturing enterprises even cannot allow any 0.1% defects in product quality control. Therefore, in order to ensure a 100% inspection pass rate (i.e., "zero defects") and to ensure the stability of the company's product quality as well as the continuous and stable growth of product competitiveness, production manufacturers need to find better methods to detect defects, and machine vision inspection is currently the best method.

Machine vision inspection is currently the most advanced detection technology applied in product appearance defect detection and quality inspection. It involves using machines to replace human eyes for measurement and judgment. Machine vision inspection refers to the process where machine vision products (such as image acquisition devices, including CMOS and CCD types) convert the captured target into image signals, which are then transmitted to a dedicated image processing system. Based on the distribution of pixels and brightness, color, etc., these signals are converted into digital signals. The image system performs various operations on these signals to extract the features of the target, and then controls the actions of on-site equipment according to the judgment results.

On the production line of products, the highly repetitive and intelligent tasks of quality inspection are mostly carried out by manual inspection. Such measurements and judgments will inevitably lead to errors and mistakes due to fatigue, individual differences, etc., and cannot guarantee a 100% inspection pass rate (i.e., "zero defects"). Moreover, it adds a huge amount of labor costs to the enterprise. The inspection system based on machine vision technology can conduct automatic and high-precision, high-efficiency, and stable inspections of the entire product. This is very important for product quality control and ensuring product quality, and it can also save labor costs for the enterprise.

Advantages of machine vision inspection:

1. Non-contact and non-destructive inspection, without damaging or scratching the products.

2. Fast speed, able to match the production line speed, without delaying production time.

3. High detection efficiency, high accuracy of product detection, improving the defects of manual inspection such as missed detection and false detection.

4. 24-hour long-term operation, no visual fatigue, stable operation, high work efficiency.

5. Reduced labor costs, machine vision inspection saves a lot of labor costs, bringing considerable benefits to the enterprise.

6. Strong applicability, high flexibility, adaptable to various harsh environments such as vibration, humidity, and dust.

7. Simple maintenance, low technical requirements for operators, long service life and other advantages.

Machine vision inspection holds significant application value in the industrial production sector, especially in repetitive and mechanical tasks. For enterprises, it not only ensures the stability of product quality but also enhances the competitiveness of their products.