Lucent Technologies Inc.

At+t Corp.

Western Electric Company, Inc.

At&t Ipm Corp.

American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation

Ralph A Treder

Joseph S Kovalchick

Israel Amir

Hung N Nguyen

George T Harvey

Theodore J Sikorski

A machine vision system and method of enhancing the imaging of an article which is comprised of optically translucent or semi-transparent material. Generally, the system includes a vision processor, a video camera, a computer, and an illuminator. The illuminator directs light, in a three dimensional space, at a surface of the material other than a surface to be imaged. The light which enters the translucent material is scattered isotropically within the material and emerges from the surface to be imaged, in effect illuminating the material. The illumination enhances contrast, that can be typically achieved with conventional lighting, between the material and its background or adjoining components permitting the machine vision system to clearly image and detect features of the article.

Method and apparatus for illuminating translucent and semi-transparent

The parallelism of two nominally parallel surfaces is determined by placing a planar reflector (50) on one surface and a cube beam splitter (52) on the other surface. The reflector is placed to reflect light in a direction normal to the plane of the reflector. The cube beam splitter is placed to reflect part of the light striking a first face (54) back in the opposite direction. The cube beam splitter also reflects part of the incident light towards the reflector so that the reflector reflects the light back to the cube beam splitter, causing the light to exit the first cube beam splitter face. An autocollimator (10) is provided to direct a beam of light (24) into the first face (54) of the cube beam splitter (52) and to display the divergence between the first and second reflected beam portions, the divergence corresponding to the degree of non-parallelism between the two surfaces.

Method and apparatus for measuring the parallelism of two surfaces

First and second plates (10 and 12), each having a reflective surface (14) opposite the reflective surface on the other plate, are aligned substantially parallel to each other by first separating the second plate (12) from the first one. A beam of collimated light (24) is then directed at the first plate (10) so the beam is reflected along a path lying in the field of view of a light detector (26). The second plate (12) is then positioned relative to the first plate (10) so that the beam (24) is reflected from the second plate onto the first plate for reflection therefrom onto the second plate so as to undergo at least one reverberation before being reflected from the second plate into the light detector so as to appear at substantially the same point before the plates were separated.

Method for aligning two reflective surfaces

The color of each of a plurality of wires 18(1) . . . 18(8) can be determined by first placing the wires proximate to a white background (31) and then directing a pair of light beams (36,38) thereat. Each of the red, green and blue spectral components in the light reflected from each wire and in the light reflected from the surface is simultaneously sensed by a separate one of three television cameras (40,42 and 44), respectively, having a separate one of a set of red, green and blue band pass filters (52,54 and 56), respectively, thereon. The output signal of the television cameras is processed by a machine vision system (58) which first computes the ratios of the red, green and blue spectral components of the light reflected from each wire to the red, green and blue spectral components, respectively, of the light reflected from the background. Each of the red, green and blue intensity ratios computed for each wire is then compared by the machine vision system to a red, green and blue intensity ratio, respectively, established for each of a plurality of wires of known colors until a substantial match therebetween is found. When a substantial match is found, the wire of unknown color can then be identified.

Method and apparatus for color identification

An ultrasonic technique for remotely inspecting a body is described. A transducer (14), capable of generating and detecting ultrasonic signals, is coupled to the body. An ultrasonic signal (A.sub.o) is launched by the transducer (14) into the body (e.g. 10, 11) and is reflected by any imperfection (e.g. 12) therein. The effects of variations of the transmission coefficient between the transducer and the body are substantially eliminated by intentionally cutting a predetermined calibration notch (22) into the body under test. The analysis of the reflected ultrasonic signals at the notch (22) and at any imperfection (e.g. 12) within the body gives an indication of the quality of the body independently of the transducer/body transmission coefficient.

Growing community of inventors

Ewing, NJ, United States of America

Ralph A Treder