Westinghouse Electric Corporation

Edward C Borgoyn

John M Beatty

The two sides of a flat panel are inspected in successive inspection stations each of which includes a camera having a linear array of CCD elements which generates an image line-by-line from a stripe of light reflected by one flat surface of the panel as the panel is conveyed through the inspection station. The signals representing images of the two faces of the panel are independently digitized and stored in separate pixel arrays of gray-scale values. The images are queued for filtering followed by processing by a single image processing board which generates a table of hits, identified as pixels having gray-scale values which breach preselected thresholds. Sections of the stored pixel array are transmitted sequentially to the image processing board which has a frame size smaller than the stored array, with the frame sized sections overlapping as required to confine the pixels processed to those inside the edges of the panel image. A microprocessor analyzes the hits identified by the image processing board and generates a reject signal if the density of hits exceeds a limit. The microprocessor also associates hits by proximity into blobs and rejects the panel if a weighted count of hits in any blob exceeds predetermined criteria.

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North Braddock, PA, United States of America

Edward C Borgoyn