polarization Archives - AUTOMATION INSIGHTS

Gone are the days when an industrial camera was used only to take a picture and send it to a control PC. Machine vision systems are a much more sophisticated solution. Projects are increasingly demanding image processing, speed, size, complexity, defect recognition and so much more.

This, of course, adds to the new approach in the field of software, where deep learning and artificial intelligence play a bigger and bigger role. There is often a lot of effort behind improved image processing, however, some people, if only a few, have realized that part of it can already be processed by that little “dummy” industrial camera.

I will try to briefly explain to you in the next few paragraphs how to achieve this in your application. Thanks to that, you will be able to get some of these benefits:

Reduce the amount of data
Relieve the entire system
Generate the maximum performance potential
Simplify the hardware structure
Reduce the installation work required
Reduce your hardware costs
Reduce your software costs
Reduce your development expenses

How to achieve it?

Try to use more intelligent industrial cameras, which have a built-in internal memory sometimes called a buffer. Together with FPGA (field programmable gate array) they will do a lot of work that will appreciate your software for image processing. These functions are often also called pre-processing features.

What if you have a project where the camera must send images much faster than the USB or Ethernet interface allows?

For simple cameras, this would mean using a much faster interface, which of course would make the complete solution more expensive. Instead, you can use the Smart Framer Recall function in standard USB and GigE cameras, which generates small preview images with reduced resolution (thumbnails) with an extremely accelerated number of frames per second, which are transferred to the host PC with IDs. At the same time, the corresponding image in full resolution is archived in the camera’s image memory. If the image is required in full resolution, the application sends a request and the image is transferred in the same data stream as the preview image.

The function is explained in this video.

Is there a simpler option than a line scan camera? Yes!

Many people struggle to use line scan cameras and it is understandable. They are not easy to configurate, are hard to install, difficult to properly set and few people can modify them. You can use an area scan camera in line scan mode. The biggest benefit is standard interface: USB3 Vision and GigE Vision instead of CoaXPress and Cameralink. This enables inspection of round/rotating bodies or long/endless materials at high speed (like line scan cameras). Block scan mode acquires an Area of Interest (AOI) block which consists of several lines. The user defines the number of AOI blocks which are used to create one image. This minimizes the overhead, which you would have instead when transferring AOI blocks as single images using the USB3 Vision and GigE Vision protocols.

The function is explained in this video.

Polarization has never been easier

Sony came with a completely new approach to — a polarized filter . Until this new approach was developed, everyone just used a polarization filter in front of the lens and combined it with polarized lighting. With the polarized filter, above the pixel array is a polarizer array and each pixel square contains 0°, 45°, 90°, and 135° of polarization.

What is the best part of it? It doesn’t matter if you need a color or monochrome version. There are at least 5️ applications when you want to use it:

Remove reflection – > multi-plane surfaces or bruise/defect detection
Visual inspection – > detect fine scratches or dust
Contrast improvement -> recognize similar objects or colors
3D/Stress recognition -> quality analysis
People/vehicle detection -> using your phone while driving

Liquid lens is very popular in smart sensor technology. When and why do you want to use it with an Industrial camera?

Liquid lens is a single optical element like a traditional lens made from glass. However, it also includes a cable to control the focal length. In addition, it contains a sealed cell with water and oil inside. The technology uses an electrowetting process to achieve superior autofocus capabilities.

Benefits to the traditional lenses are obvious. It doesn’t have any moving mechanical parts. Thanks to that, they are highly resistant to shocks and vibrations. Liquid lens is a perfect fit for applications where you need to observe or inspect objects with different sizes and/or working distances and you need to react very quickly. One liquid lens can do the work of multiple-image systems.

To connect the liquid lens, it requires the RS232 port in the camera plus a DC power from 5 to 24 Volt. An intelligent industrial camera is able to connect with the camera directly and the lens uses the power supply of the camera.

The complexity of factory automation creates constant challenges which drive innovation in the industry. One of these challenges involves the ability to accurately detect the presence of shiny or highly reflective objects. This is a common challenge faced in a variety of applications, from sensing wheels in an automotive facility to detecting an aluminum can for filling purposes at a beverage plant. However, thanks to advancements in photoelectric sensing technologies, there is a reliable solution for those type of applications.

Why are highly reflective objects a challenge?

Light reflects from these types of objects in different directions, and with minimum energy loss. This can cause the receiver of a photoelectric sensor to be unable to differentiate between a signal received from the emitter or a signal received from a shiny object. In the case of a diffuse sensor, there is also the possibility that when trying to detect a shiny object, the light will reflect away from the receiver causing the sensor to ignore the target.

So how do we control the direction of the light going back to the receiver, and avoid false triggering from other light sources? The answer is in polarized retroreflective sensors.

Retroreflective sensors require a reflector which reflects the light back to the sensor allowing it to be captured by the receiver. This is achieved by incorporating sets of three mirrors oriented at right angles from each other (referred to as corner cubes). A light beam entering this system is reflected by all three surfaces and exits parallel to the incident beam. Additionally, corner cubes are said to be optically active as they rotate the plane of oscillation of the light by 90 degrees. This concept, along with polarization, allow this type of sensor to accurately detect shiny objects.

Polarization

Light emitted by a regular light source oscillates in planes on dispersal axes. If the light meets a polarizing filter (fine line grid), only the light oscillating parallel to the grid is let through (see figure 1 below).

In polarized retroreflective sensors, a horizontal polarized filter is placed in front of the emitter and a vertical one in front of the receiver. By doing this, the transmitted light oscillates horizontally until it hits the reflector. The corner cubes of the reflector would then rotate the polarization direction by 90 degrees and reflect the light back to the sensor. This way, the returning light can pass through the vertical polarized filter on the receiver as shown below.

With the use of polarization and corner cubed reflectors, retroreflective sensors can create a closed light circuit which ensures that light detected by the receiver was sourced exclusively by the emitter. This creates a great solution for applications where highly reflective targets are influencing the accuracy of sensors or causing them to malfunction. By ensuring proper operation of photoelectric sensors, unplanned downtime can be avoided, and overall process efficiency can be improved.