METHOD AND DEVICE FOR INSPECTING SURFACE

• US 20120081541A1
• Filed: 01/05/2011
• Published: 04/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: National Taiwan University (Government of The Republic of China)
• Original Assignee: National Taiwan University (Government of The Republic of China)
• Inventors: Kang, Shih-Chung, Su, Yung-Shuen
• Granted Patent: US 9,113,048 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/128
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 for receiving images from a single remote source

Abstract

A surface inspecting device is provided in the present application. The surface inspecting device includes a pair of light modules respectively providing flashes to a surface from two different angles in sequence; an image sensing module acquiring an image of the surface upon a respective one of the flashes; and a computing module electrically connected with the image sensing module and processing the image by an image subtraction algorithm.

Claims

1. A surface inspecting device, comprising:

a pair of light modules respectively providing flashes to a surface from two different angles in sequence;

an image sensing module acquiring an image of the surface upon a respective one of the flashes; and

a computing module electrically connected with the image sensing module and processing the image by an image subtraction algorithm.

2. The device according to claim 1 further comprising a control module switching on and off the pair of light modules and the image sensing module.

3. The device according to claim 2 further comprising a mobile vehicle carrying the pair of light modules, the control module, the image sensing module and the computing module.

4. The device according to claim 3, wherein the mobile vehicle is one selected from a group consisting of an engineering mobile platform, a smart inspecting vehicle, a miniature inspecting vehicle, a robot, a wheeled vehicle, a tracked vehicle and a combination thereof.

5. The device according to claim 1, wherein the pair of light modules are one selected from a group consisting of a light bulb, a light tube, a flash light, an LED and a combination thereof.

6. The device according to claim 1, wherein the image sensing module is one selected from a group consisting of a digital camera, a digital video camera, a web cam, an image sensor having a photosensitive element and a combination thereof.

7. The device according to claim 1, wherein the computing module is one selected from a group consisting of a notebook computer, a laptop computer, a personal computer, a web server, a computing host, an embedded computing system, a cloud computing system and a combination thereof.

8. A surface inspecting device, comprising:

a plurality of lights respectively providing illuminations from different incident angles to an object in sequence;

an image sensor forming an image of the object upon a respective one of the illuminations; and

a computing unit electrically connected with the image sensing module and processing the image by an image subtraction scheme.

9. A surface inspecting method, comprising:

acquiring at least two images for an object from at least two incident angles in sequence; and

processing the images by an image subtraction scheme.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the step of processing the images by an image subtraction scheme further comprises steps of:

subtracting one out of the at least two images from the other; and

obtaining a single image from the two subtracted images.