The extraction of meaningful features from the monitoring of laser processes is the foundation of new non-destructive quality inspection methods for the manufactured pieces, which has been and remains a growing interest in industry. We present ConvLBM, a novel approach to monitor Laser Based Manufacturing processes in real-time. ConvLBM uses a Convolutional Neural Network model to extract features and quality indicators from raw Medium Wavelength Infrared coaxial images. We demonstrate the ability of ConvLBM to represent process dynamics, and predict quality indicators in two scenarios: dilution estimation in Laser Metal Deposition, and location of defects in laser welding processes. Obtained results represent a breakthrough in the 3D printing of large metal parts, and in the quality control of welding processes. We are also releasing the first large dataset of annotated images of laser manufacturing.
This paper presents a generic method to process mid-wave infrared (MWIR) images in laserbased manufacturing processes. The background noise of the camera is used as a source of information for correcting different problems that affect MWIR cameras. The mean of the noise distribution is used to correct the background drift due to sensor heat-up, whereas the standard deviation is used to generate dynamic thresholds for subsequent algorithms. The proposed method is portable, robust, and independent of the background, scale, and optical and electronic aberrations of the camera. The method is validated in the calculation of melt pool cooling rate. Performance is tested in a real scenario using a Field Programmable System-on-Chip platform. Results show that the system is capable of sending to a remote computer MWIR images at 1,435 frames per second and cooling rate information at a rate of 10,680 samples per second.
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