The present invention relates to an apparatus for optically surveying and/or examining a welding componentry, in particular a vehicle axle or instrument panel. In addition, the present invention relates to a method of surveying and examining a welding componentry.
Nothing in the following discussion of the state of the art is to be construed as an admission of prior art.
Heretofore, a welding componentry, e.g. a vehicle axle or an instrument panel, manufactured on a large scale, has been examined, either attributively or through measurement, for determining whether the welding componentry is true to size. Attributive tests involve mechanical tracing gauges. This procedure is time-consuming, inflexible and oftentimes inaccurate and prone to fail. Another approach is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,285,397 or 6,651,351 and involves a random surveying of a welding componentry through use of a coordinate measuring machine. This procedure requires long cycle times and thus is essentially unsuitable for application during production. Components may also be surveyed through scanning of relevant component zones by means of a light section sensor or by means of laser-optical triangulation sensors. The sensors are hereby guided by robots. This in turn incurs high costs and involves also long cycle times.
All afore-mentioned systems assume the task to survey or check complex welding componentries at certain cycle times. To attain at least a required minimum precision, it is important to properly clamp the welding componentry and to precisely configure the optical equipment. A problem encountered to date is hereby to correctly configure the mechanical clamping mechanism so as to ensure a high mechanical stability while still enabling free accessibility for optical sensors to all features being surveyed.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved apparatus and method for optical surveying and/or examining a welding componentry, to obviate prior art shortcomings and to effect a high mechanical stability when the welding componentry is clamped while providing a sufficient viewing field for the sensors to realize a reliable operation.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds