It is very important to get an early warning about surface defects when there is something wrong with the paper, e.g. at paper changes, the forming plates or if there is dirt on the conveyor rollers. If lucky the knife operator can see some of the possible defects by visual inspection, with “only” a loss of produced board, but more likely the defect boards will be sent out to customers at significantly higher costs. FalconEye is the first surface inspection system designed, developed and dedicated for inspection of gypsum boards. It will detect all types of surface defects like scratches, dirt on conveyor rollers, finger cocklings, orange peel, grooves, paper tensions, paper splices, depressions, foreign particles and colour spots. The system is very sensitive with a practical area resolution of 3x3mm and a surface height/flatness resolution of 0.1mm. The resolution is better but the paper structure with its fibers is of the same magnitude which limits the possible detection sizes. Scratches with smaller width will be detected.
System overview:
Functional description:
A powerful LED light source illuminates the gypsum board. Two high speed cameras pick up contrast changes from the light reflected against board surface. Advanced image processing techniques evaluate and classify the defects. Underneath the wet belt there is a harsh environment but the system is well protected. A powerful side channel blower overpressurises the camera enclosures preventing dust contamination. Camera ”Eye lids” will automatically close at production stops.
System cameras and light source
System software
The FalconEye system has a real time graphical display of all scanned images. In the recipe handling all products can have individual quality sorting and reject limits. Digital output signals will immediately warn when a surface defect appears and also output the different quality grades for each image. All board images, or only the defect ones, can be stored in compressed format and accessed later for quality assurance purposes. The built in database search engine makes it easy to search for different image criterias like date/time/quality level/comments etc. It is also possible to “re-run” a stored image for fine tuning of the quality sorting levels. Production reports for each run and/or each separate paper roll can be printed.
Current, and last 10, images with quality level distributions
Current image display
Paper scratch
Periodic defects
For more information and technical specification, please download the brochure!