title: A real-time automated visual inspection system for hot steel slabs.
abstract: This paper describes an inspection system designed to automatically detect and classify surface imperfections occurring on continuously cast hot steel slabs in a steel mill. The need to perform inspection at real-time throughput rates of 546 Kpixels/s using off-the-shelf components has led to the development of a unique architecture and algorithm set. The segmentation operations are done in a high-speed array processor front end. The imperfection classification is done in a mini-computer which uses statistical as well as syntactic/semantic classification techniques. The inspection system is currently undergoing evaluation in a steel mill.
authors.affiliation: MEMBER, IEEE, Honeywell Systems and Research Center, 2600 Ridgway Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55413.
authors.forename: B R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Suresh
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Fundakowski
authors.forename: T S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Levitt
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Overland