The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 20, 2004
Filed:
Mar. 21, 2002
Takao Kokubu, Kodaira, JP;
Toru Kitajima, Kodaira, JP;
Bridgestone Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
There is disclosed an apparatus in which when a surface having a curved portion, for example, a tire surface is visually inspected, light is uniformly illuminated on the surface. In this apparatus, an image pickup operation is performed by a CCD for a region to be visually inspected, which is illuminated by turning on LEDs. Based on the image pickup result, a density distribution of the region to be visually inspected is prepared. A difference between a target light quantity and light quantity, which is obtained for each field angle of the density distribution at which the region to be visually inspected is illuminated by each light source unit, is calculated and corrected. This correction allows the quantity of light reflected from the region to be visually inspected on the inner peripheral surface to become uniform.