Measuring the Geometry of Half-Cylinders in a Pipe Production Line on a Basis of an Omnidirectional Vision System

The existing measuring systems for controlling the geometry of the half-cylinder of the mill pipes have a number of disadvantages: low energy indicators; long lead time of the technological process; the complexity and ambiguity of the operating algorithms. This paper presents a modernized algorithm for controlling the geometry of half-cylinders for the proposed vision system. The proposed theories and methods are tested on the basis of the developed virtual environment which was made similar to real technological process. In real experiments, there is a measurement uncertainty, which complicates the comparison of methods with each other. In addition, under real conditions it is difficult or impossible to estimate values of certain parameters. The virtual environment, in turn, eliminates these problems. The vision system proposed in this paper contains fewer electrical components and mechanical connections than a standard measuring system, which increases the reliability of the system. Moreover, with the proposed system, the cross-section of the half-cylinder can be scanned continuously, therefore, the energy parameters of the installation increase and the time of the technological process decreases.