SBIR Phase II: High-Resolution Shop Floor Video-Rate Surface Metrology System

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目将开发和生产一种坚固耐用的手持式视频速率三维表面测量系统，其垂直和横向分辨率为几微米，以弥补精密机械加工表面的关键现有测量差距。许多现代制造部件，如涡轮叶片、传动轴、整形外科和各种附加制造部件，都需要高分辨率的现场测量，以便在制造和/或维护操作中进行准确的表征。目前的高分辨率表面测量系统速度慢、对振动敏感且以实验室为基础，因此不适合制造技术人员的日常使用。同时，车间检查往往只是目视的，因此是定性的，而不是定量的，这既导致可接受的部件被拒收，也可能导致不合格的部件被接受。缺乏高精度的现场计量，阻碍了制造商应用实时数据分析和闭环过程控制来提高产量和降低制造成本。这项研究计划将产生一种手持、易于使用、健壮和定量的车间测量系统，使制造商在快速评估测试特性并反馈结果以改进工艺控制的同时，提高使用寿命、性能和良率。在第一阶段，设计并实现了面包板系统，使用基于偏振的条纹投影法和微偏振器相位掩模技术，在紧凑的封装中实现振动不敏感测量。该第二阶段计划利用这项研究来设计一种视频速率、紧凑、坚固和便携的系统，用于车间环境中的手持式表面测量。这将首先涉及通过改进的光学设计和新的自校准测量模式来提高测量分辨率；新的光学元件将降低由于早期设计中的缺陷而引起的噪声伪影，并减小系统尺寸。一旦新设计的性能得到验证，必须为仪器创建符合人体工程学的、紧凑、坚固的无线外壳，以支持车间使用；系统必须能够处理超过一米的落差到混凝土上，具有延长现场操作的有用电池寿命，足够轻，不会使用户疲劳，并具有直观的控制和反馈。最后一个至关重要的开发工作将创建用于测量、分析和系统诊断的自动化软件例程，以使制造环境中的非熟练人员能够采用。最后，在外地进行广泛的应用程序测试将使系统得以优化，以处理各种潜在的用例和环境。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will develop and produce a robust, hand-held, video-rate three-dimensional surface metrology system with vertical and lateral resolution of several micrometers, in order to bridge a critical existing metrology gap for precision-machined surfaces. Many modern manufactured parts, such as turbine blades, drive shafts, orthopedics, and various additive manufactured components require in-situ metrology with high resolution for accurate characterization during manufacturing and/or maintenance operations. Current high-resolution surface measurement systems are slow, vibration-sensitive and laboratory-based and thus are impractical for everyday use by manufacturing technicians. Meanwhile, shop-floor inspection is often only visual, and thus qualitative rather than quantitative, leading both to rejections of acceptable components as well as potential acceptance of failing ones. The absence of high-precision, in-situ metrology has hindered manufacturers from applying real-time data analysis and closed-loop process controls that can improve yields and reduce manufacturing costs. This research program will yield a hand-held, easy-to-use, robust, and quantitative shop-floor measurement system, allowing manufacturers to improve lifetimes, performance, and yield as they rapidly assess the features under test and feed the results back to improve process control.During Phase I, a breadboard system was designed and implemented using a polarization-based fringe projection method and micropolarizer phase-mask technology to achieve vibration insensitive measurement in a compact package. This Phase II program leverages that research to design a video-rate, compact, robust and portable system for handheld surface measurements in shop-floor environments. This will first involve improvements to measurement resolution with an improved optical design and new self-calibrating measurement modes; new optical elements will lower noise artifacts caused by imperfections in the earlier design and to reduce system size. Once performance of the new design is verified, an ergonomic, compact, robust, wireless housing for the instrument must be created to enable shop-floor use; the system must handle drops of over one meter onto concrete, have useful battery life for extended field operations, be light enough to not fatigue users and have intuitive controls and feedback. A final, critically important development effort will create automated software routines for measurement, analysis, and system diagnostics to enable adoption by unskilled personnel in manufacturing environments. Lastly, extensive applications testing in the field will allow optimization of the system to handle a wide range of potential use cases and environments.