A washing system that can reliably remove chips attached to the surface of a jig on which a workpiece is placed. The washing system includes a nozzle, a manipulator for moving the nozzle, an imaging part for capturing an image of a region on which a workpiece is placed, a chip detecting part for detecting a chip in the region based on the image captured by the imaging part, a arrangement determining part for determining a position and posture of the nozzle when the fluid is sprayed to the chip, a manipulator controlling part for controlling the manipulator so that the nozzle is located at the determined position and posture, and a fluid supplying part for injecting, through the nozzle, the fluid that has been supplied to the nozzle.

An intellectual automatic tool changer (ATC) speed moderating system, which is disposed between a tool magazine and a tool exchanging arm, includes an image capture device for capturing the image of tools, and a processing device connected with the image capturing device. The processing device includes a receiving module for receiving the images of tools, a calculating module for calculating an assessment value of a tool according to the image of the tool, and a signal transmitting module connected with a controller of the tool exchanging arm for transmitting the assessment value of the tool to the controller. Therefore, the tool changing speed of the tool changing arm is controlled and moderated.

A method of inspecting a cutting blade having a cutting edge formed of abrasive grains of selected abrasive grain diameters which are bound by a bonding material, includes a cutting step of moving the chuck table and the cutting blade, which is being rotated at a high speed, relatively to each other along a direction perpendicular to an axis of rotation of a spindle, thereby forming a cut groove in the workpiece, and an inspecting step of capturing an image of the cut groove formed in the workpiece by image capturing means, and inspecting the state of the cut groove. The inspecting step examines whether or not the selected abrasive grain diameters are proper on the basis of any of the elements representing the size of an average chip, the number of chips, and the area of chips on both sides of the cut groove per unit length.

Grinding and/or erosion machine (10) for machining a chip-cutting rotary tool including a tool body (18) and several cutting plates (19) per existing pitch (TR). A control device (25) activates an axis arrangement (11) to move a machine tool (12) and the rotary tool (13) to be machined relative to each other. An interface device (26) triggers a data import function for reading-in the position data of the cutting plates (19). The position data (P) describe at least one angular value (1, 2), a first length value (z1) and a second length value (z2). The control device (25) imports the position data (P) in chaotic order and allocates the position data (P) of each cutting plate (19) in the imported machine data set (M) to respectively one separate virtual pitch (TV), independent of whether the cutting plates (19) belong to a common pitch of the rotary tool (13).

A processing system having a function for appropriately maintaining processing accuracy, without depending on a degree of abrasion of a tool. An unused tool used in a machine tool is captured by using a camera mounted on a robot, so as to obtain a reference image of the tool. Next, an image of the tool is captured after a predetermined number of processing operations carried out. An average amount of tool abrasion per one processing operation is calculated based on the two images, so as to estimate a current amount of tool abrasion. Based on the estimation result and a previously input limit amount of abrasion, the number of remaining possible processing operations of the tool is calculated and output.

An intelligent machine vision system for in-process monitoring of wear of a cutting tool includes a machine vision camera, a microscope, and a light source adapted for lighting the cutting tool to allow collection of cutting tool images with the machine vision camera. A CDC cutting machine for in-process monitoring of a cutting tool incorporates this machine camera vision system. Further, a method of in-process monitoring of a machine cutting tool includes the steps of displacing a spindle of the machine cutting tool to position the machine cutting tool held in the spindle for monitoring with a machine vision camera and collecting at least one image of a first cutting edge of the cutting tool.

An intelligent production line for motor pulley, include a processing mechanism; a feeding mechanism; a grasping mechanism; a detection mechanism, including a photographing device, a light source, a positioning block, and an image processing unit, the positioning block is used to place the pulley to be detected, the light source is used to illuminate the pulley to be detected, and the photographing device is arranged in the backlight direction of the light source, the image processing unit is used for acquiring the workpiece image of the pulley to be detected through the photographing device and detecting the workpiece parameters of the pulley to be detected through the workpiece image; a feedback mechanism, which communicates and connects the detection mechanism and the processing mechanism, and is used for acquiring the workpiece parameters and adjusting the processing parameters of the processing mechanism according to the parameters.

Optical imaging apparatus and a machine vision camera system for an alarm protecting a person's hands when working at a motorized cutting or abrading machine, uses trains of sets of mirrors to define four spaced-apart viewpoints and transfer non-overlapping scenes on to an image sensor of a single camera. An optical axis from each viewpoint allows a cuboidal protected volume to be created. The cuboid may have vertical sides. Recognizable objects inside that volume cause the machine to stop, while objects near but outside the volume cause the apparatus to raise an alarm.

A machine tool system includes a machine tool main body for machining a workpiece supported on a table by using a tool detachably attached to a spindle, and an information processing apparatus. The machine tool main body includes a rotary tool magazine in which multiple grips each capable of holding the tool to be attached to the spindle are provided along the circumferential direction, and an image pickup device that is arranged in the tool magazine and configured to take an image of multiple members in a machining area of the machine tool main body. The information processing apparatus includes a geometric feature calculating unit configured to calculate the shapes and the arrangement state of the multiple members in the machining area, based on image data of the image taken by the image pickup device.

A method for aligning a laser projector for projecting a laser image onto a work surface is provided. The method includes providing a laser projector assembly with a laser source for projecting a laser image onto a work surface, a secondary light source for illuminating the work surface and a photogrammetry device for generating an image of the work surface. The method also includes affixing reflective targets onto the work surface and transmitting light from the secondary light source toward the work surface and reflecting light toward the photogrammetry device. The method further includes scanning the targets with a laser beam generated by the laser source for reflecting the laser beam toward a laser sensor and calculating a location for projecting the laser image onto the work surface from the reflected laser beam.