The purpose of this paper is to investigate an optical‐based scanning modality for the real‐time measurements of automotive interior gaps.
The hardware is based on a charge‐coupled device detector acquiring a laser illumination. The laser is projected on multitude of substrates with different reflectivities and surface profiles; while the scanning is progressed manually through a hand‐held setup.
The proposed software identifies the optical gap location automatically and establishes a dynamic field of view.
The study conducts a tool reliability and repeatability study that yield an accuracy of 0.08 mm and a repeatability of less than 6.5 percent as user bias. The developed hardware/software combination, when compared with two commercial systems; a 3D scanner and an industrially packaged sensor unit used for exterior gaps, which provided repeatability values of 24 and 17 percent, respectively, with accuracies of 1.5 and 0.34 mm.
New hardware and software are developed in combination to operate effectively on different deco finish and gap separations.
