AI-enhanced integrated surface metrology
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: Faculty of Engineering
Abstract
The world is experiencing the first stages of a digital industrial revolution: Industry 4.0. However, current digital quality control solutions are not delivering in terms of speed, capability, efficiency or futureproofing. An essential part of manufacturing is quality control, which is achieved through measurement. One of the most important measurands for quality control is the surface of the part; both shape and fine-scale topography are critical when considering tolerances, assembly and ultimately functionality. But current integrated surface measurement technologies are too slow and have little flexibility under variable processing conditions. Measurements are taken after manufacture or by slowing down the process - compromising the all-important throughput. To take surface measurement from lab to application can require speed increases of several orders of magnitude, and this is often beyond the capability of current technology. However, I have demonstrated that these challenges can be tackled using an emerging approach: information-rich metrology - the use of a priori information to enhance the measurement process by optimising what needs to be measured, so increasing the spatial bandwidth but decreasing the measurement time. Such optimisation generally requires complex physics models of the measurement; this is where a recent revolution comes to the rescue: machine learning, which I will use to combine newly developed physics models with a priori information to produce enhanced measurement systems that are an integral, real-time, and constantly learning part of the manufacturing process. This is not a proposal to make incremental developments; rather I seek to transform the field by combining the advances of three fields (basic physics, machine learning and metrology) - a binding energy approach that will be more than the sum of the parts. The proposed project will revolutionise digital quality, making measurement a seamless, yet constantly evolving part of manufacturing.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Richard Leach (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Eastwood J
(2023)
Improving the localisation of features for the calibration of cameras using EfficientNets.
in Optics express
Gayton G
(2023)
Evaluating parametric uncertainty using non-linear regression in fringe projection
in Optics and Lasers in Engineering
Newton L
(2023)
Optimisation of Imaging Confocal Microscopy for Topography Measurements of Metal Additive Surfaces
in Metrology
Thompson A
(2023)
New Standard for Metal Powder Bed Fusion Surface Texture Measurement and Characterisation
in Metrology
Wang J
(2023)
Stitching Locally Fitted T-Splines for Fast Fitting of Large-Scale Freeform Point Clouds.
in Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
| Description | Calibration and correction of optical topography measuring technology |
| Amount | £112,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Nottingham |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2019 |
| End | 04/2020 |
| Description | Alicona |
| Organisation | Alicona |
| Country | Austria |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Alicona are working closely with us to improve their instrumentation and calibration methods. We have put one self-funded PhD student on the calibration issues. The Alicona focus variation microscope is heavily utilised by my group and throughout the Faculty and has led to several papers in the planning stage. We have also purchased a 5 degree of freedom motion stage that allows us to measure complex geometries and this arrives in March 2016. We also now have a funded H2020 project (see MICROMAN in funding, which pays for a PhD student to work on a new wifi focus variation probe for Alicona (to be used with machine tools). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Alicona have placed a £100k instrument in our lab on a permanent loan basis. They work closely with on surface measurement research, calibration and new measurement system development. They are members of the fellowship advisory board. |
| Impact | Several papers with many academics in the Faculty and outside: MaCaulay G D, Senin N, Giusca C L, Leach R K 2016 Study of manufacturing and measurement reproducibility on a laser textured structured surface Measurement 94 942-958 Tosello G, Haitjema H, Leach R K, Quagliotti D, Gasparin S, Hansen H N 2016 An international comparison of surface texture parameters on polymer artefacts using optical instruments Ann. CIRP 65 539-562 Senin N, Moretti M, Leach R K 2017 Shape descriptors and statistical classification on areal topography data for tile inspection on tessellated surfaces Measurement 95 82-92 Hirsch M, Patel P, Li W, Guan G, Leach R K, Sharples S, Clare A D 2017 Assessing the capability of in-situ nondestructive analysis during layer based additive manufacture Additive Manufacturing 13 135-142 Vaithilingam J, Simonelli M, Saleh E, Senin N, Wildman R D, Hague R J M, Leach R K, Tuck C J 2017 Combined inkjet printing and infra-red sintering of silver nanoparticles using a swathe-by-swathe and layer-by-layer approach for 3-dimensional structures ACS Appl. Mat. Interf. 9 6560-6570 Rabani A, Senin N, Helmli F, Butler-Smith P, Leach R K 2016 An integrated measurement method for complex micro-scale geometries Proc. 16th Int. euspen Conf., Nottingham, UK, Jun 83-84 Thompson A, Senin N, Leach R K 2016 Towards an additive surface atlas Proc. ASPE Summer Topical, Rayleigh, NC, Jun 156-161 Multiple measurements for a large number of staff and students, allowing process understanding, improvement and control. |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | HIT |
| Organisation | Harbin Institute of Technology |
| Country | China |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Annual lecturing at HIT Keynote presentation at IS3COM conference in Harbin Involvement in EMPIR project (FreeFORM) to develop scattering coatings to improve the angle sensitivity of optical instruments Winning EU RISE proposal (MRS4Cell) to work with HIT on optical transfer function for confocal microscopy - 55 months of secondments funded from 2017 - 2021 Delivered 2 week course on metrology in HIT (Dec 2018) New confocal microscope delivered to our labs Award of High Level Expert Status and associated funcding (£50k for travel) |
| Collaborator Contribution | 3 x RA researchers for 1 year each to work on our research Visiting professorship for Prof. Leach Honorary professorship for Prof. Liu (HIT) Expert Status for Prof. Leach |
| Impact | Several papers in preparation Su R, Wang Y, Coupland J M, Leach R K 2017 On tilt and curvature dependent errors and the calibration of coherence scanning interferometers Opt. Express 25 3297-3310 |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Loughborough |
| Organisation | Loughborough University |
| Department | Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Experimental verification of linear theory of focus variation microscopy Theoretical coding and experimental verification of linear (foil) theory of coherence scanning interferometry Visting professorship for Prof. Leach Honorary Professorship for Prof, Coupland (Loughborough) |
| Collaborator Contribution | Supply of rigorous code for calculating e-m scattering - needed for many aspects of our research Visiting professorships |
| Impact | Several joint papers prior to joining Nottingham. Papers in preparation. Su R, Wang Y, Coupland J M, Leach R K 2017 On tilt and curvature dependent errors and the calibration of coherence scanning interferometers Opt. Express 25 3297-3310 |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | NPL |
| Organisation | National Physical Laboratory |
| Department | Environmental Measurement Group |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Additive manufacturing of samples PhD student on design for merology for additive manufacturing EngD student on testing of surface texture software measurement standards PhD student on testing of materials properties for additive manufacturing |
| Collaborator Contribution | Part funding for PhDs and EngD above Attendance on steering committee for Fellowship |
| Impact | 83. Todhunter L, Leach R K, Lawes S D A, Blateyron F 2017 Comparison of Type F2 software measurement standards for profile surface texture parameters Meas. Sci. Technol. 28 065017. Smith I M, Harris P M, Todhunter L, Leach R K, Giusca C L, Jiang X, Scott P J 2017 Algorithms and software for areal surface texture function and feature parameters Meas. Sci. Technol. 28 105008. Todhunter L D, Leach R K, Lawes S D A, Blateyron F 2017 Industrial survey of ISO surface texture parameters CIRP J. Manufac. Sci. Technol. 19 84-92. Todhunter L, Leach R K, Lawes S D A 2017 An industrial survey on the use of surface texture parameters Proc. Met. & Props, Gothenburg, Sweden, Jun 166-167. Todhunter L, Leach R K, Lawes S D A, Blayteron F 2017 An analysis of Type F2 software measurement standards for profile texture parameters Proc. IMEKO, AMCTM XI, Glasgow, UK, Aug 11-12. Rivas Santos V M, Sims-Waterhouse D, Piano S, Maskery I, Leach R K 2017 Metrological design of calibration and benchmarking artefacts for an additive manufacturing system Proc. euspen/ASPE Dimensional Accuracy & Surface Finish in AM, Leuven, Belgium, Oct 24-27. Bitar I, Aboulkhair N, Leach R K 2017 The application of composite through-thickness assessment to additively manufactured parts SFF Symp. 2017, Austin, USA, Aug |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Zygo |
| Organisation | Zygo Corporation |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | 2 x PhD students working with Zygo instrumentation Research into instrument calibration and correction |
| Collaborator Contribution | Supply of top-end coherence scanning interferometer and supervision of students Second instrument supplied (an upgrade) |
| Impact | Su R, Wang Y, Coupland J M, Leach R K 2017 On tilt and curvature dependent errors and the calibration of coherence scanning interferometers Opt. Express 25 3297-3310. Gomez C, Thompson A, Su R, DiSciacca J, Lawes S, Leach R K 2017 Optimisation of surface measurement for metal additive manufacturing using coherence scanning interferometry Opt. Eng. 56 111714. Ekbert P, Su R, Leach R K 2017 High-precision lateral distortion measurement and correction in coherence scanning interferometry using an arbitrary surface Opt. Express 25 18703-18712. Liu M Y, Cheung C F, Cheng C H, Su R, Leach R K 2017 A Gaussian process based stitching method for high dynamic range optical measurement of precision surfaces Prec. Eng. 50 99-106. Su R, Thomas M, Leach R K, Coupland J M 2017 Effects of defocus on transfer function of coherence scanning interferometry Opt. Lett. 43 82-85. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | ISMTII Conference, South Korea |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Oral: Virtual optical instrument for uncertainty evaluation in surface topography measurement Oral: Determination of the influence of environmental vibration on the evaluation of measurement noise using a virtual instrument |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.ismtii2023.org/ |
| Description | Nanoscale, Finland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Oral: Scattering methods for modelling optical surface topography measurement instruments Oral: Determination of the influence of environmental vibration on the evaluation of measurement noise using a virtual instrument |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.euramet.org/publications-media-centre/events/detail/event/nanoscale-2023 |
| Description | Physics of Waves and Optics Specialization (Rice University) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Course attended by: Isa Mohamed and Andrzej Frelek |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Principles of Coordinate Metrology, Coventry University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A one day course attended by Helia Hooshmand, Ruidong Xue and Ahmet Koca |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | SPIE Optical Metrology conference, Germany |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Conference attended and oral paper presented: "Comparison of approximate methods for modelling coherence scanning interferometry" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://spie.org/conferences-and-exhibitions/optical-metrology#_=_ |
| Description | euspen International Conference, Denmark |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Poster: Comparison of coherence scanning interferometry, focus variation and confocal microscopy for surface topography measurement Poster: Uncertainty propagation of field areal surface texture parameters using the metrological characteristics approach |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.euspen.eu/events/22nd-international-conference-exhibition/#:~:text=30th%20May%20%E2%80%9... |