3m Innovative Properties Company

Steven R Wageman

Steven P Floeder

James A Masterman

Carl J Skeps

Wenyuan Xu

Steven R Dreger

Matthew P Peick

Xi Yu

Techniques are described for inspecting a web and controlling subsequent conversion of the web into one or more products. A system, for example, comprises an imaging device, an analysis computer and a conversion control system. The imaging device images the web to provide digital information. The analysis computer processes the digital information to identify regions on the web containing anomalies. The conversion control system subsequently analyzes the digital information to determine which anomalies represent actual defects for a plurality of different products. The web inspection system may preferentially apply different application-specific defect detection recipes depending on whether a given anomaly is a repeating or random anomaly.

Application-specific repeat defect detection in web manufacturing processes

An imaging device for sequentially imaging a portion of a continuously moving web to provide a digital data stream which is then analyzed by a single computer without the used of dedicated signal processing hardware. Techniques for operating on the data stream from an imaging device are disclosed, particularly including operations based on blob information stored in terms of starting position and segment run lengths in a crossweb direction. These allow definitions of blobs to be accumulated in a line-by-line fashion, and allow classes of defects commonly found in continuous web manufacturing to be identified with far less computing power than was previously required. In particular, in the challenging application of inspecting flexible circuits, data rates in excess of 10 mega-pixels/second are achieved and successfully processed.

Web inspection method and device

Growing community of inventors

Saint Paul, MN, United States of America

Steven R Wageman