Hammering Test with Image and Sound Signal Processing

A method for discriminating a property of an object with the use of generated sound when striking it with a hammer is called a hammering test. This method, however, depends on human experience and skills. In addition, if we perform this test over a wide area of object, it is required to manually record hammering positions one by one. In order to solve these problems, this paper proposes a hammering test system consisting of a computer and a video camera, through which image and sound signals of a hammering scene are acquired. As a basic study, we inspect thickness distribution over a wood board, where thickness is estimated by sound signal processing in time and frequency domains, and each hammering position is determined by image signal processing. A preliminary experiment showed the validity of the proposed method.