In today’s competitive automotive market, the interior of a vehicle is a critical factor in shaping consumer preferences. Decorative components, such as glossy trim pieces and luxurious finishes, play a key role in enhancing the perception of quality within the car. Traditionally inspected manually, these parts now require a more advanced, automated solution to meet the rising demand for perfection.
Key players like Motherson Group, a global leader in plastic injection for automotive interiors, understand the importance of delivering flawless products to the market. According to the 2023 Global Automotive Consumer Study published by Deloitte, consumer preferences across all regions indicate that product quality is the primary reason for purchasing a car. This trend puts immense pressure on manufacturers to ensure that every interior component—especially those that add visual appeal and perceived value—meets the highest standards.
For ISR Specular Vision, this is where our technology comes into play. Decorative plastic injection parts, often coated with high gloss finishes or transparent surfaces, must be perfect in every way to uphold a brand’s promise of luxury and quality. Our automated inspection systems are designed to detect the smallest imperfections, ensuring that each piece not only meets but exceeds the expectations of discerning consumers. By enhancing the quality control process, we help automotive interior manufacturers deliver premium products that align with the evolving demands of the market.
Automotive interior current scenario
For years, vehicle interiors have become a space where comfort, design, and technology converge, with a growing focus on quality and personalization. As electric and autonomous vehicles gain traction, this diligence in interiors is becoming even more critical. Luxury car brands are increasingly incorporating sophisticated decorative elements into the cabin, relying on high-gloss plastic injection components to elevate the perceived value and luxury of the interior. These decorative parts, including elegant trims and transparent surfaces, not only enhance the aesthetics but also contribute to the overall sensory experience for drivers and passengers.
In luxury vehicles, backlit components offer a polymorphic interior experience, with augmented designs that are either highlighted or concealed depending on the lighting. This technology adds another layer of exclusivity, giving consumers the ability to transform the cabin at will. Additionally, the fusion of decorative elements with lighting supports the trend towards multifunctional spaces, where the interior design is not just about looks, but also about utility, such as integrating Human-Machine Interface (HMI) systems into the design.
A prime example of this innovation is BMW’s Smartbars, featured in their top models like the i7, i5, and the new 7 Series. These transparent, backlit components are part of the HMI system, blending innovative technology with aesthetic appeal. The TIER 1 in charge of manufacturing these parts, committed to offering the highest quality, has chosen ISR Specular Vision’s automatic inspection technology to ensure these Smartbars meet their exacting standards for luxury and precision.
Given these evolving trends, ensuring the flawless quality of decorative components is more important than ever. Manual inspection of these parts, with their intricate textures and glossy finishes, is becoming impractical due to the speed and precision required in production lines. This is where ISR Specular Vision’s automated inspection systems come into play, guaranteeing that every decorative piece meets the highest standards of quality, ensuring a luxurious and seamless experience for the end consumer.
Overview OIT Interior Lighting Systems
Given these evolving trends, ensuring the flawless quality of decorative components is more important than ever. Manual inspection of these parts, with their intricate textures and glossy finishes, is becoming impractical due to the speed and precision required in production lines. This is where ISR Specular Vision’s automated inspection systems come into play, guaranteeing that every decorative piece meets the highest standards of quality, ensuring a luxurious and seamless experience for the end consumer.
OIT Interior Systems provide a reliable solution for inspecting defects on car interior decorative or lighting surfaces. These systems are designed to adapt to the size and shape of the parts being inspected. Like other OIT systems, they integrate seamlessly into the production line, positioned after the injection or finishing processes. One of the key advantages ISR brings is that OIT systems are equipped to manage multiple models by allowing the interchange of jigs, enabling inspection of various parts with a single system. The integrator ensures smooth part insertion into the OIT cabin through the system’s automated door, typically the last step in the part’s production cycle.
Currently, OIT Interior Lighting Systems inspect twenty-six interior references worldwide, guaranteeing that luxury interior parts meet the highest quality standards.
The automated inspection process follows the quality standards set by the end customer, or OEM, which clearly defines the defects to be detected, the areas to be inspected, and the procedures for manual inspection by an operator.
This inspection cycle is divided into the following phases:
- First phase – Retro image by transmittance. In this phase, images are captured using fixed cameras to obtain a complete view of the part. These images are darker, making it easier to detect black defects.
- Second phase – Aspect image by reflection. In this phase, another row of fixed cameras is employed, focusing on the part’s sides, which are typically dark. To ensure proper inspection, the sides are illuminated using reflective lighting. These cameras are angled strategically within the system to capture this area perfectly.
The cycle time ranges from 6 to 12 seconds, highlighting the efficiency of our systems in balancing thorough inspection with fast processing times. In the next section, we will present sample images captured by the system and analyze them using our advanced processing tools.
Main defects encountered and classical and automatic processing techniques
How do images look like in this kind of OIT Systems? To begin, it is essential to recall our core technology, images are captured with a gray background, and any unwanted elements on the part appear in black or white, making defects easy to spot. There are slight exceptions due to the part’s morphology, which can sometimes cause unwanted black or white details in the image. However, we overcome this challenge through a combination of machine learning and classical algorithms. Going more deeply into the images below, it is important to remember that:
- The red color shows the defects whose size exceeds the marginal defects maximum size and, therefore, makes the part NOK.
- The pink color shows the defects whose size is between the marginal defects’ minimum and maximum size thresholds. More than one (threshold quantity can be adjusted using the user interface) defect of this size must be detected for the part being classified as NOK.
- Green shows a contour which is not considered a defect since its size is smaller than the marginal defect minimum size.
- Blue shows a contour which we identified as repetitive (areas that are not gray because of morphology of the part).
- Numbers indicate the biggest dimension (mm) of the defect.
- The purple area of the image indicates the area that is out of the Region of Interest (ROI) and is not inspected.
- The rectangle is, in addition to the detected defect, the classification of the defect using Machine Learning techniques.
As can be seen, ISR’s technology uses a combination of classical and machine learning techniques to accurately detect and classify defects, providing significant value to our customers by delivering detailed insights into the production quality of their parts.
This approach involves various segmentation algorithms and morphological processing to identify every defect in the image. Following extensive work on labeling images in close collaboration with the customer, we train a neural network to develop a predictive model capable of classifying these defects with precision.
Conclusions
- The demand for luxury and personalization in automotive interiors makes high-quality decorative components essential for creating premium, differentiated designs.
- Automated inspection technology is crucial for maintaining the highest quality standards in intricate, backlit decorative components, ensuring flawless integration and performance.
- OIT Interior Systems provide a reliable solution for inspecting defects on car interior decorative or lighting surfaces.
- Nowadays, ISR Interior Lighting Systems inspecting interior parts are seven all over the world, with two different customers. The main car models inspected by ISR are from Volskwagen and BMW.
- Combination of classical and machine learning techniques to accurately detect and classify defects is key for a competitive quality process in the market and the satisfaction of the manufacturer and customer.
Autor: Ángel Troyano
