Intelligent Manufacturing € February € 1997 € Vol. 3 € No. 2

Intelligent Inspection System Improves Textile Quality

The Industrial Fabrics Group of Johnston Industries (Phenix City, Ala.;http://www.sytebytes.com/j./johnston.html), a textile manufacturer, has begun testing an automated on-line inspection system that uses advanced vision technology, neural networks, fuzzy logic and wavelets to quickly identify defects in fabric. Developed by researchers at Georgia Tech (Atlanta), the system could ultimately be the basis for an integrated electronic feedback system that monitors and controls quality processes throughout the manufacturing cycle. If the system performs as expected, it will cut inspection costs and reduce the amount of off-quality production.

Inspecting textile fabrics can be challenging because the industry uses many types of yarns and weave patterns, quality standards can differ by company, and existing systems rely on manual processes subject to human error. Inspection is expensive for the textile industry, costing as much as $1 million per year at some manufacturing plants.

The value of fabric affected by defects can also be significant, since recurring problems in high-speed looms can damage thousands of yards of fabric if not quickly found and corrected. Most manufacturing plants employ inspectors to watch for off-quality problems during weaving, but some defects are still not identified until final inspection.

The new intelligent inspection system, on the other hand, automatically identifies defects as the fabric comes off the loom, allowing the manufacturer to immediately correct process problems. It uses a special lighting arrangement and a set of high-speed cameras to scan fabric as it winds onto a take-up roll after weaving. A computer analyzes the information provided by the vision system using techniques that identify abnormal patterns and determine whether they should be considered defects.

Besides detecting off-quality fabric, the inspection system can also provide information that will help companies pinpoint the factors that cause defects. The system can also provide a detailed record of weaving quality that apparel manufacturers can use to optimize their use of fabric.

The system's technology has been licensed to Appalachian Electronic Instruments (Ronceverte, W.Va.), a manufacturer of textile-related equipment. The company expects to turn the prototype into a commercial system that can be retrofitted to existing looms and installed in new machines.

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