Printed circuit board inspection using image analysis

Computer vision has been widely used in the online inspection of electronic components. In this paper, the authors present a computer vision system using structured lighting, which provides them with an efficient solution for solder joint inspection. Their system uses a novel structured-lighting inspection technology to overcome some difficulties that traditional computer vision systems often experience. They developed a slant map surface shape estimation technique for the solder joint. From this technique, a solder joint can be determined to be a good (concave), bad (convex), bridged solder joint, or solder joint with surplus solder, or lacking solder.