Textile laser-optical system for inspecting fabric structure and form

Glenn O. Allgood; Dale A. Treece; David Keith Mee; Larry R. Mooney

doi:10.1117/12.380081

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21 March 2000 Textile laser-optical system for inspecting fabric structure and form

Glenn O. Allgood, Dale A. Treece, David Keith Mee, Larry R. Mooney

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Proceedings Volume 3966, Machine Vision Applications in Industrial Inspection VIII; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.380081
Event: Electronic Imaging, 2000, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

The American textile industry has lost an estimated 400,000 jobs to offshore competitors since 1980. It is predicted they will lose an additional 600,000 jobs by the year 2002. These losses and their resulting economic threat to the U.S. textile industry can be attributed to the low operating costs of their offshore competition. In order to stem these rising losses, the American textile industry entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in a program called the American Textile Partnership (AMTEX^TM). Since the minimum U.S. labor rate is well above that of its offshore competitors, one of the competitive factors the U.S. industry hopes to gain is a higher quality fabric. To facilitate this, a Computer-Aided Fabric Evaluation (CAFE) System has been developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, Inc. (LMES). The system is based on a class 3-a laser and a set of cylindrical lenses allowing for 1-D imaging of single yarns thrown in the fill direction. It has been designed to be located close to the point of fabric formation providing data and information on structure, patterns, and material defects of the fabric as it is being formed.

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Glenn O. Allgood, Dale A. Treece, David Keith Mee, and Larry R. Mooney "Textile laser-optical system for inspecting fabric structure and form", Proc. SPIE 3966, Machine Vision Applications in Industrial Inspection VIII, (21 March 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.380081

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