The introduction of new firmware and the GoMax plug and play smart vision accelerator by LMI Technologies has further enhanced the capabilities of Gocator smart 3-D inspection systems. New tools, features and improvements included in the firmware make production line 3D inspection easier and more efficient than ever before. GoMax® can accelerate any Gocator® by adding massive GPU-driven data processing power to the sensor or sensor network. In addition, new Gocator® laser line profilers and snapshot sensors have been introduced.
Gocator 3D measurement sensors, available from STEMMER IMAGING, are characterized by on-board 3D processing and measurement capabilities. The new firmware features new 3D surface measurement tools, easy Universal Robots (UR) integration for Gocator snapshot sensors, built-in PROFINET support and more.
New tools
A new Surface Segmentation Tool identifies discrete parts even if they are touching or partially overlapping. This can provide statistics on global information such as part count, min/max height, width, and length. Using an SDK application or GDK tool, engineers can apply 3D surface measurements on individual parts. A new Surface Track tool can be used for applications where multiple parts appear in the field of view of the sensor simultaneously—such as inline grading and sorting of food items. The tool allows a measurement path to be defined with a separate utility and uploaded to a Gocator® sensor. The sensor can then perform width, height, offset, and continuity inspection at defined points along the path and return global measurements (min/max/average) and statistics. This is highly effective in applications such as measuring the height and volume of glue beads on electronics devices. Other firmware developments include 3D surface measurement tools for stitching, vibration correction, filtering, and improvements to Gocator’s 360º scanning capability.
Easy Universal Robots (UR) Integration
Gocator® snapshot sensors can be easily integrated into applications using UR devices. The Gocator URCap plugin allows connection to a robot controller or PC application for sensor hand-eye calibration and pick-and-place implementation. With no need for additional programming, robotic systems are easily set up for factory automation applications.
Accelerating 3D inspection
All Gocators feature powerful on-board processing capabilities, but for high speed production lines even faster processing may be required. The GoMax® smart vision accelerator is a cost-effective, scalable hardware solution that allows the acceleration of any Gocator sensor without the need for a PC. This compact device speeds up the sensor by taking over a portion of the data processing including point cloud generation, 3D measurement, and PLC/robot communication.
By providing 1.5 TeraFLOP/s of server-grade data processing power with its embedded NVIDIA Jetson TX2 (including a 256-core CUDA® GPU and 64-bit quad-core ARM processor), GoMax allows faster cycle times and enhances overall inspection performance. Sensor acceleration of up to 50X is possible. The plug-and-play functionality of GoMax allows the quick and easy addition of this massive data processing power to any Gocator sensor or multi-sensor network. Multiple Gocator® sensors can be simultaneously accelerated and multiple GoMax® units can be easily added to meet specific inspection needs.
New Gocators
Designed for high-performance inspection of small parts such as electronics components, the new 2500 series of Gocator® 3D laser line profilers are the fastest, most compact, and advanced to date. A new custom high-speed 3 megapixel imager and megapixel lens provide micron-level X and Z resolution at significantly increased production speeds up to 10 kHz. The new Gocator 3504 3D stereo camera snapshot sensor combines market-leading 6 µm XY resolution and 0.2 µm Z repeatability for precise sub-micron inspection of small parts. Pre-calibrated and ready to measure out-of-the-box, it is ideal for inline applications where objects are momentarily stationary such as robotic inspection and pick-and-place.
