CAItech Chooses Optimet Sensor for 3D Inspection Machine

San Jose, CA, Feb. 6, 2000 - Confocal optic sensors made by Optimet Metrology, Inc. (Danvers, MA) have been chosen by CAItech for their line of 3D inspection and scanning machines.  The confocal optics sensor, called the ConoProbe, is capable of measuring the distance to a surface to an accuracy between 2 micron and 25 microns depending on the objective lens used.

CAItech President Dr. Shawn Buckley said, "The Optimet sensor is 10 times more accurate than our own laser triangulation sensor.  We are eager to incorporate these sensors into our machines."

CAItech plans to use the probe to produce more accurate surface data for scanned parts. CAItech's current 3D inspection system incorporates a "laser trinagulation" sensor.  This sensor illuminates a thin stripe of the part with a laser light while an electronic camera captures light reflected from the stripe.  Using the image location of a point on the stripe and the geometry of the laser and camera determines the point's location in 3 dimensions.  The collection of points on a part's surface are called its "datacloud".

The datacloud found by laser triangulation sensors have a relatively low resolution: 200 microns instead of 25 microns.  In addition to low resolution, laser sensors have other drawbacks such as multiple reflections (the laser beam reflecting from one part surface to another), difficulty in measuring shiny, black or highly angled surfaces and laser speckle (a laser phenomenon which degrades resolution).

A confocal optics sensor minimizes these drawbacks.  Like in the laser sensor, its sensing beam reflects from the part being scanned.  However, the reflected light is split into two beams -- one polarized with respect to the other -- before the two beams are optically combined and measured by a solid state camera.  Like in the laser sensor, the camera's image is converted to the distance to the part surface.  It is comparing two differently polarized beams from the part surface that makes the Optimet sensor so accurate.

Computer Aided Inspection Technologies, Inc. is a privately held California corporation manufacturing next-generation automated inspection equipment. Established in 1997, CAItech is located in San Jose, CA in the heart of California's Silicon Valley electronics industry.
CAItech can be reached at (408) 226-0642, or on the web at www.caitech.com .