A recent visit to Perceptron's World Headquarters (Plymouth, Michigan) included a presentation from Michael Blood (Director of Marketing) along with Karen Carper (Marketing Specialist). The discussion and tour focused on their latest and most exciting development: The Helix non-contact metrology system with Intelligent Illumination (TM). The visionary breakthrough (no pun intended) is a world first in 3D metrology sensor technology. Mr. Blood illuminated further with the following advantages of this new development; choice of laser line number, density and orientation, 3D feature extraction and the creation of 3D point clouds. The 3D point cloud looks something like a radar-generated "weather map". This advance accelerates the evolution of production scalability from launch to ramp-up to full-scale manufacturing.
The new Helix perceptual ability enhances, expands and surpasses normal human visual acuity. Its technological quantum leaps of performance bring with it additional characteristics of general dimensioning and tolerance (GDT). This can lead to easier, faster and increased throughput of process and production.
It can help the customer engineer avoid a variety of unseen pitfalls. Immediate problem fixes are now possible with the new system. The aspects of 3D point cloud generation, high data density, ease of use and total process and product knowledge can lead to higher numbers of mixed product models. Like a weather map, the 3D point cloud can immediately identify trouble spots or regions of stable quality. This all gives the engineers and quality staff fast and full comprehension of the total product and process quality.
The once undreamed of Helix non-contact metrology technology is poised to become the new engineering metrology standard. The new system expands to measure the product's total universe of data, dimensions and profile. The original standard measurement volume is now increased by a factor of 100. This order of magnitude is a quantum leap of change. An internal study demonstrated that 1 Helix sensor could replace the standard 4 TriCam sensors. 6 Helix sensors replaced 22 standard sensors. 47 Helix sensors replaced 125 standard sensors. A 2X to 3X increase in measurement followed - with the similar reduction in equipment number and costs.