On-line Visual Inspection Of Automobile Display Panels

TLDR: The paper describes a system developed for the automatic performance testing of self-illuminating display panels used, for example, in automobile dashboard instrumentation, which performs 64 tests on the panels in approximately 45 seconds, which is considerably faster than a human operator could achieve.

Abstract: The paper describes a system developed for the automatic performance testing of self -illuminating display panelsused, for example, in automobile dashboard instrumentation. The system employs a high resolution TV camera to view the displays; the image being analysed in a microcomputer system using special -purpose software. The change from moving needle instruments to electronic displays, which employ vacuum fluorescent, LCD andLED technologies, forces a new testing philosophy on manufacturers. The system performs 64 tests on the panelsin approximately 45 seconds, which is considerably faster than a human operator could achieve. Introduction It is an accepted fact of life that many conventional analogue moving needle instrument displays are beingreplaced with multifunction display panels. With this increase in complexity, the problems of testing are magnified.In many applications, simple functional tests conducted by humans are acceptable. However, in applications concerned with large scale manufacturing, such as the automotive industry, or where a high degree of testing isrequired for reliability, such as with aircraft displays, limited functional testing by inspectors is neither sufficiently