Feasibility Study on Improving Image Motion Blur with Stroboscope for Micro Tool Measurement

Abstract

This paper studied how to improve motion blur on the image obtained while a micro mill is rotated at very high speed. Vision technology is capable of extracting the information of a rotating micro tool such as tool offset, breakage and runout by video analysis. Distinct images are necessary as the input for such vision based tool inspection system. However, the spindle speed of a high precision machining center is usually very fast. It is a real challenge to capture clear images. Stroboscope is an economic solution to overcome motion blur. In this paper, a customized stroboscope was designed and an on-machine experiment was conducted to test its performance to capture the image of micro cutters. The diameter of a micro end mill is 0.9mm. The spindle rotation speed is 120,000rpm. The motion blur is about 2 pixels if pulse duration of the stroboscope is set as 2 µs. The distinct images of the rotating cutter can be obtained. The result shows that stroboscope is effective to improve the motion blur dramatically for micro milling tools.