System Improvements Based on the Operating Experiences of an Automatic 3D Measurement System

Publication Details

Abstract

In an operation that began in 2007, Hitachi Engineering & Services (HES), in collaboration with Nikon Metrology Inc., developed the automatic 3D measurement system using Nikon’s Laser Radar (LR). This system was presented as a white paper at the 24th annual CMSC in Charlotte, North Carolina, in July of 2008, and an article about it was published in The Journal of the CMSC the following year. Although this system has been operating high-accuracy and high-efficient automatic measurements since 2007, in some cases it had to rely on the manual operation to measure the edges which were important to determine the outer shape of the object. The LR has functions to measure edges and outer shapes of the object by using the reflected laser from the surface of the object. However, it detected the false position depending on the particular surface conditions of the measurement object. Therefore, the following improvements to strengthen the edge-measurement function were planned: First, to improve the edge-measurement algorithm built in LR (Nikon Metrology Inc.), and second, to build up the systematic recovery function in case of the failure of the improved edge-measurement algorithm (HES). This enabled the high-accuracy measurement of the complicated outer shape. Going forward, this system it is expected to expand the applicable fields for 3D measurement.