The status of vision expert systems for material inspection

As economic constraints and quality issues increasingly preoccupy materials producers, the topic of nondestructive product inspection is taking on increasing importance. Most promising is the potential of vision expert systems, which not only collect in-depth data, but use such advanced capabilities as expert knowledge and inference mechanisms to analyze part quality and immediately identify problems. As these intelligent processing systems are developed and applied, manufacturers should be able to realize reduced costs and improved quality.