Real Time Contour Based Ceramic Tile Edge and Corner Defects Detection

Original scientific paper In attempts to increase the production quality and to decrease the production costs in ceramic tile industry almost every phase in the production process needs to be automated. One way of decreasing the production costs is to detect the tiles with defects before the baking process (biscuit tiles). The separated tiles are returned to the input material mixture and the energy is not spent on baking the tiles with defects. In this paper methods for edge and corner defects detection of a biscuit ceramic tile are presented. Methods are implemented and tested on biscuit ceramic tiles using area scan camera and a prototype conveyor line. These methods are evaluated by the defect detection capabilities and the real-time application features. The results show that the methods could be used for real-time application and that the defect tiles detection percentage can reach the required value.