A NON-CONTACTING DIMENSIONAL PROFILER

THIS PROJECT CONCERNS A METHOD FOR VERY RAPIDLY OBTAINING COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DIGITAL CONTOUR INFORMATION (I.E., DIMENSIONAL PROFILING) FOR DIFFUSELY REFLECTING OBJECTS. THE PROPOSED TECHNIQUE COMBINES A NUMBER OF RECENTLY DEVELOPED TECHNOLOGIES (HIGH-POWER LASER DIODES, CCD-ARRAY VIDICONS, HIGH-SPEED DATA PROCESSING IN AN INEXPENSIVE COMPUTER, AND LOW-COST FRAME-GRABBERS), WITH A NOVEL HARDWARE CONFIGURATION AND DATA-PROCESSING ALGORITHM. THE NON-CONTACT DIMENSIONAL PROFILER WILL BE RELATIVELY INEXPENSIVE, FAST, AND VERSATILE: THUS IT SHOULD BE IDEALLY SUITED FOR ON-LINE QUALITY-CONTROL APPLICATIONS. ITS EFFECTIVE USE WILL IMPROVE MANUFACTURING THROUGHPUT, REDUCE WASTE AND ENERGY CONSUMPTION, AND SAVE TIME. IT CAN BE APPLIED TO TASKS AS DIVERSE AS MONITORING THE SHAPE OF FORMED SHEET-METAL PANELS, MEASURING THE FLATNESS OF PROCESSED SILICON WAFERS, OR CHECKING THE SURFACE CONTOUR AND VOLUME OF CANDY BARS. CONVENIENT TRADE-OFFS BETWEEN MEASUREMENT RANGE AND PRECISION CAN EASILY BE ACHIEVED, AND IN ONE CONFIGURATION A DYNAMIC RANGE (I.E., RATIO OF MEASUREMENT RANGE TO MINIMUM RESOLVABLE HEIGHT INCREMENT) OF MORE THAN 5,000 TO 1 CAN BE ACHIEVED.