Procedure for the Orientation of Laser Triangulation Sensors to a Stereo Camera System for the Inline Measurement of Rubber Extrudate

Abstract

Rubber production is a labour-intensive process. In order to reduce the needed number of workers and the waste of material, the level of digitalisation should be increased. One part of the production is the extrusion to produce gaskets and similar objects. An automated observation of the continuous rubber extrudate enables an early intervention in the production process. In addition to chemical monitoring, the geometrical observation of the extrudate is an important aspect of the quality control. For this purpose, we use laser triangulation sensors (LTS) at the beginning and the end of the cooling phase of the extrudate after the extrusion. The LTS acquire two-dimensional profiles at a constant frequency. To combine these profiles into a three-dimensional model of the extrudate, the movement of the extrudate has to be tracked. Since the extrudate is moved over a conveyor belt, the conveyor belt can be tracked by a stereo camera system to deduce the movement of the extrudate. For the correct usage of the tracking, the orientation between the LTS and the stereo camera system needs to be known. A calibration object that considers the different data from the LTS and the camera system was developed to determine the orientation. Afterwards, the orientation can be used to combine arbitrary profiles. The measurement setup, consisting of the LTS, the stereo camera system and the conveyor belt, is explained. The development of the calibration object, the algorithm for evaluating the orientation data and the combination of the LTS profiles are described. Finally, experiments with real extrusion data are presented to validate the results and compare three variations of data evaluation. Two use the calculated orientation, but have different tracking approaches and one without any orientation necessary.