Some very old projects
The following is a short listing of the most significant projects carried out in the 1980's and early 1990's.
The printed wiring board inspection system was under development 1983-1985. The operational principle was to transform the imaged patterns to a vector representation and compare that to CAD data. Although this project didn't materialize as commercial systems, it provided much of the foundation for most future projects.
An experimental system for the automatic visual on-line inspection of metal strip was developed in 1987-1989. The device detected and classified surface defects such as scratches, spills and color stripes. From the basis of this work Rautaruukki NT has developed its SMARTVIS -line of steel inspection systems.
The CAT was a three wheeled vehicle propelled by a DC motor developed and used in autonomous navigation research 1986-1990. The vehicle was equipped with a three-camera stereo vision system to model the environment.
An experimental turbine blade inspection system was developed 1986-1987 for detecting cracks starting from the trailing edges of the blades. The idea was to capture the images using a boreoscope controlled by a translation stage while the turbine was rotated slowly.
The goal of the Machine of the Future project, 1990-1993, was to develope an integrated control method for intelligent autonomous machines, and to verify its suitability with a prototype of an autonomous pick-and-place manipulator. The outdoor tests were carried out with a large hydraulic paper roll manipulator equipped with a sophisticated gripping device and appropriate sensors.
