Vision-based clad height measurement

The laser deposition process is useful for part creation, repair, and hard facing. To maintain consistent clad height in the presence of process uncertainties measurement and control is required. This work presents a vision-based clad height measurement technique that utilizes a CCD camera and a line laser to measure the complete clad profile. Unique line detection and spur trimming algorithms are presented that extract measurement data efficiently. The effectiveness of the measurement approach is validated through examples.