Automated Visual Inspection of Threaded Weapon Systems

The U.S. Army uses millions of threaded components in its weapon systems, many of which are nonstandard or Class III Safety Critical and therefore must undergo rigorous dimensional quality control. The inspection of threaded parts using conventional surface-contacting gauges is costly, time-consuming, and the results can be subject to operator interpretation. In addition, a special tool is usually required for each thread parameter to be inspected and these tools require periodic certified calibration. The following proposal addresses the need to improve the Army's quality control process by adapting field-proven, laser-based measurement technology to to the application of threaded part inspection. In Phase I a bench-top prototype unit will be designed and built that can be demonstrated on a thread form found on a critical Army ordnance system. During Phase II a full-scale thread inspection system will be developed for use b the Army in one of its ordnance manufacturing plants. The system will be capable of inspecting both external and internal threads and will be adaptable to a large number of parts. The successful completion of this SBIR program will result in significant improvements in the manufacture of threaded parts for the U.S. Army b the implementation of quantitative, noncontact thread measurements and statistical process control.