A coating thickness measuring instrument comprising: a magnetic induction probe comprising at least one drive coil and at least one pick-up coil; a driver for driving an alternating current in the or each drive coil; and a detector for detecting the output of the or each pick-up coil; and a processor configured to: apply a transfer function to the detector output to produce an output which corresponds to a measured coating thickness; and, scale both the drive current and detector output simultaneously in response to the output. The scaling may be changed in a step-wise manner. The scaling applied to the drive current may be inversely proportional to the scaling applied to the detector output. The scaling may be defined by a first and second scaling factor, stored as a pair. The instrument may store two or more pairs of scaling factors and select a pair in response to the measured coating thickness.

A system includes an inspection robot comprising a plurality of sensor sleds; a plurality of ultra-sonic (UT) sensors; a couplant chamber mounted to each of the plurality of sleds, each couplant chamber comprising: a cone, the cone comprising a cone tip portion at an inspection surface end of the cone; a sensor mounting end opposite the cone tip portion; a couplant entry fluidly coupled to the cone at a position between the cone tip portion and the sensor mounting end; and wherein each of the UT sensors is mounted to the sensor mounting end of one of the couplant chambers.

A method for contactless and non-destructive determination of the layer thicknesses of lacquer layers of vehicle parts is disclosed. In addition, the invention relates to a device to determine and measure the lacquer layers of vehicle part, the device constructed for performing optical coherence tomography and includes at least one radiation source for providing electromagnetic radiation and the electromagnetic radiation provides a wavelength (λ) of 100 nm-15.Math.10.sup.3 nm and in particular 380 nm to 800 nm.

Methods, systems, and non-transitory computer readable medium are described for prescriptive analytics in highly collinear response space. A method includes receiving film property data associated with manufacturing parameters of manufacturing equipment. The method further includes determining that the film property data is correlated and is different from target data. The method further includes selecting a set of data points of the film property data that are orthogonal to the target data. The method further includes performing feature extraction on the set of data points. The method further includes determining, based on the feature extraction, updates to one or more of the manufacturing parameters to meet the target data.

The present invention relates to a measuring device for determining the thickness of a dielectric layer on a conductive substrate. The device comprises a resonance cavity for electromagnetic fields which has a rotationally symmetrical wall, an end plate and an open end and is adapted to be positioned with the open end on the dielectric layer. The device further comprises an antenna which is adapted to excite an electro-magnetic field in the resonance cavity, a reflection measuring unit for determining at least one property of the electromagnetic field and an evaluation circuit for determining the thickness of the dielectric layer from the at least one property of the electromagnetic field. A diameter of the rotationally symmetrical wall varies in a longitudinal direction of the resonance cavity.

A system includes an inspection robot having a plurality of input sensors, the plurality of input sensors distributed horizontally relative to an inspection surface and configured to provide inspection data of the inspection surface at selected horizontal positions; a controller, comprising: a position definition circuit structured to determine an inspection robot position of the inspection robot on the inspection surface; a data positioning circuit structured to interpret the inspection data, and to correlate the inspection data to the inspection robot position on the inspection surface; and wherein the data positioning circuit is further structured to determine position informed inspection data in response to the correlating of the inspection data with the inspection robot position.

A method of chemical mechanical polishing includes bringing a substrate having a conductive layer disposed over a semiconductor wafer into contact with a polishing pad, generating relative motion between the substrate and the polishing pad, monitoring the substrate with an in-situ electromagnetic induction monitoring system as the conductive layer is polished to generate a sequence of signal values that depend on a thickness of the conductive layer, determining a sequence of thickness values for the conductive layer based on the sequence of signal values, and at least partially compensating for a contribution of conductivity of the semiconductor wafer to the signal values.

A system including an inspection robot having a plurality of sensors, a further sensor, and a controller. The controller having circuitry to receive inspection data with a first resolution from the plurality of sensors, determine a characteristic on the inspection surface based on the inspection data, and provide an inspection operation adjustment in response to the characteristic, wherein the inspection operation adjustment includes a change from the first resolution to a second resolution. The change from the first resolution to the second resolution includes enabling the further sensor where the further sensor is at least one of: horizontally distributed with or vertically displaced from the plurality of sensors relative to a travel path of the plurality of sensors, and at least one of: offset in alignment from the travel path of the plurality of sensors, or operated out of phase with the plurality of sensors.

A method may include positioning an eddy current probe proximate to a coated portion of an article. The coated portion of the article includes a conductive substrate and a ceramic coating overlying the conductive substrate. The method includes generating, using the eddy current probe, a first primary magnetic field to induce eddy currents in the coated portion of the article and measuring, using the eddy current probe, a strength of a first secondary magnetic field created by the eddy currents in the coated portion of the article to obtain a first secondary magnetic field measurement. The method includes determining, by a computing device, one or more properties or one or more changes in properties of the article based on the first secondary magnetic field measurement.

An inspection system can include a handheld inspection device having a meter portion comprising at least two different paint meters, at least one display, at least one processor configured to present paint measuring locations on an inspected object on the at least one display, and communication circuits configured to transmit inspection data generated by meter portion. Based on inspection results, a value of the inspected object can be automatically adjusted. A database can store inspection data for large numbers of objects, and track locations of objects. Corresponding methods are also disclosed.