SBIR Phase I: In Situ Three-dimensional Surface Roughness Gauge

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目将展示第一个计量系统的可行性，该系统能够在生产环境中就地量化三维表面粗糙度。目前的车间系统几乎完全是基于二维触笔的系统，这些系统很脆弱，无法测量复杂的几何形状，拥有成本很高。车间3D粗糙度系统将实现更大的采样、更快的过程反馈和更短的结果时间，这将增强美国广泛行业的竞争力，包括医疗设备、航空航天、交通和国防。所有精密加工的零件都需要表面粗糙度或质地，但使用现有的接触式量规实现一致的结果是困难和耗时的。据信，车间内的非接触式粗糙度测量设备可以获得巨大的市场份额，如果证明与现有可信的实验室技术相关，销售额将超过5000万美元/年。此外，几乎所有已加工表面上的可靠、随时可用的粗糙度信息将提高精密制造商的质量、寿命和美观，从而提高竞争力并减少各种行业的浪费。该项目的智能优势在于它利用了各种领域的最新进展，包括加法制造、精密光学、微处理、图像传感器和干涉算法，以在可在制造环境中部署的防振设备中实现纳米级的垂直分辨率。最接近的同类产品的垂直分辨率比这里建议的要差100倍以上，所提出的性能目标对实现高分辨率和手持功能构成了巨大的挑战。第一阶段的成功将证明，各个领域的进步之间的显著协同效应可以结合在一起，显著提高比前一代产品的性能。此外，如果成功，制造商将能够在更多类型的表面上获得更大范围的过程控制参数，并将能够通过对其生产周期进行更快、更准确的反馈来显著提高质量和产量。此第一阶段计划的输出将是第一个产品设备，可以在车间环境中带给客户进行演示。该设备将与现有技术相关联，同时解决许多关键问题，如对准困难、通过接触测量擦伤表面以及缺乏三维表面信息。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will demonstrate feasibility of the first metrology system capable of quantifying surface roughness in three dimensions in situ in production environments. Current shop floor systems are almost entirely two-dimensional stylus-based systems that are fragile, incapable of measuring complex geometries and have high cost of ownership. A shop-floor, 3D roughness system will enable greater sampling, faster process feedback and improved time-to-results which will enhance competitiveness across a wide range of U.S. industries including medical devices, aerospace, transportation, and defense. All precision machined components call out surface roughness or texture, yet achieving consistent results with existing contact gauges is difficult and time consuming. It is believed that a shop floor, non-contact roughness measurement device could gain significant market share, with sales upwards of $50M/year upon proving correlation with existing trusted laboratory techniques. Also, trusted, readily available roughness information on almost any machined surface will enable enhanced quality, lifetime, and aesthetics for precision manufacturers, improving competitiveness and reducing waste across a variety of industries. The intellectual merit of this project is due to its leveraging of recent advances in a variety of fields including additive manufacturing, precision optics, microprocessing, image sensors and interferometric algorithms to achieve nm-scale vertical resolution in a vibration-immune device deployable in manufacturing environments. The closest similar product has vertical resolution more than 100X worse than is proposed here and the proposed performance goals present significant challenges to achieve both high resolution and hand-held capability. A successful Phase 1 will prove that significant synergies between advances in various fields can be combined to significantly advance performance over prior generation products. Also, if successful, manufacturers will have access to a far greater range of process control parameters on more types of surfaces and will be able to improve quality and yield significantly via faster and more accurate feedback into their production cycle. The output of this Phase 1 program will be a first article device that can be brought to customers for demonstration in a shop floor environment. The device will correlate with existing techniques while solving many key issues, such as alignment difficulty, scratching surfaces via a contact measurement, and lack of three-dimensional surface information.