Reliable tool wear monitoring by optimized image and illumination control in machine vision

Systems for automatic tool wear monitoring contribute to measures to reduce manufacturing costs considerably. However, only a few tool wear monitoring principles have found their way into industrial practice yet. Mostly, these are indirect measurement techniques based e.g. on accoustic emission, force measurement etc. This paper discusses the many advantages of machine vision as an direct measurement technique. Research in the past has proved the feasibility of this technique in principle, but there still remain problems with the integration of such measurement systems in a way, so that they meet further industrial requirements. These are requirements like quality of measurement results, integration close to the machine, tool handling and advanced techniques of adaptive illumination for obtaining optimized camera images even for varying types of cutting tools. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.