A typical commercial aircraft is held together by several hundreds of thousands of rivets—or “fasteners,” as they are called in aerospace industry jargon—that can result in significant safety and fuel-efficiency issues if improperly installed. Ensuring proper fastener insertion while maintaining high levels of manufacturing efficiency has been a constant balancing act when using traditional inspection techniques. Recent innovations in structured-light 3D optical scanning and augmented reality (AR) techniques from 8tree (Denver, CO and Daisendorf, Germany)—the 2013 SPIE Startup Challenge winner—are making it possible to achieve both proper
fastener insertion and efficiency.1How it works
fastCHECK is an application-specific, 3D-structured light scanner optimized to measure fastener flushness with high speed and accuracy and consistent repeatability. The system consists of a solid-state, WVGA-resolution, MEMS-based light engine and a VGA-resolution, 125 frames/s CCD sensor coupled with supporting electronics and proprietary measurement and analysis software.The light engine projects structured light patterns (variable-width fringes) onto the target aircraft surface and the reflections are detected by the sensor. Using well-established triangulation techniques, 8tree’s software performs a combination of 2D imaging to detect (…)
