Date of Award

5-8-2023

Degree Type

Capstone Project

First Advisor

Bahram Nassersharif

Abstract

Miniature Casting Corporation has requested Team 03 to develop a potential visual inspection system that can transport zinc-casted products to an AI inspection camera to detect any possible defects. The products will then be sent to an automated sorting system to separate defective parts from accepted parts.

This inspection system needed to inspect parts at 96% accuracy, inspect at least 40,000 parts per day, under 8 feet tall, use 110V plug style for any electronics, use a maximum of 115 PSI of air, and be easy to maintain. These design requirements were combined with customer requirements to create design specifications for the entire system. By use of literature searches, patent searches, Pugh Analysis, and QFD, 120 different design concepts were generated between the four members of the team. A singular system was chosen based upon these design concepts which was presented, but then soon thereafter scrapped due to unrealistic integration of the subsystems and overall complexity of the system as a whole. 2 new systems were then created that were completely different from the initial design. This was then narrowed down to a singular design which sacrificed the quality of the scan for improved integration between subsystems and a less complex mechanism. This design used a conveyor belt to transport the parts to the camera, and air nozzles to both orient the parts for scanning and also to send parts to their proper space after defects were determined.

Little market analysis was conducted, as this system is to be purpose-built for MiniCast, and there are similar systems on the market, but none that would fully meet MiniCast’s demands while also being automated. Financial analysis was conducted, and the system was found to be well-within MiniCast’s budget. As for the Proof of Concept, the main focus was on how the pneumatic system and conveyor system would operate, and the supporting calculations behind the air pressure that would be used to orient the parts for proper alignment when getting scanned by the inspection camera.

In the next semester, Team 03 set out upon completely finalizing the design and building the inspection system. Many design changes were made in order to keep within budget and also to finish within the semester. Some of the major changes that were made were to only use one inspection camera instead of two, and to have a servo motor knock the part over instead of a blast of air. In the end, Team 03 developed a system that is physically complete and working, but needs further refining in the form of minor physical developments, coding, and camera programming in order to fully meet the requirements set by the sponsor. Team 03 wishes that MiniCast can either further the work on this project themselves, or assign a Capstone team next year that can finish this work.

Comments

Team Name: Team 03: Automated Part Inspection System

Company Sponsor: Miniature Casting Corporation

Document Reference: URI-MCE-CAP-FDR-2023-05

Download

Share

COinS