A Mechatronic Approach for Automatic Inspection of Deformable Webs

The ever-increasing cost of labour in the textile industries coupled with rapid advances in technology has resulted in the automation of most sections in the present textile manufacturing industry. The recent addition to the automation drive, mostly in the last decade, has been substantial research in applying machine vision tools to replace humans for tasks such as inspection, textile characterisation and apparel manufacturing. This paper investigates a novel approach for automatic inspection of deformable textile webs, particularly lace fabrics, in real time. The authors have worked on an incremental approach using a multi Digital Signal Processor (DSP) system to achieve the required task at a reasonably high speed with minimum false alarms. A direct comparison of the live image with a perfect prototype in real time is found to be the most adaptable solution to the problem.