Tire inspection apparatus for inspecting the sidewall of the tire

Abstract

In order to provide a tire inspection apparatus which is capable of identifying, when performing an appearance inspection of a tire, a location of a rubber burr from a captured image of a tire side and avoiding detection of the rubber burr as a defect in a subsequent inspection step using image processing, the tire inspection apparatus is provided with a storage unit for storing a model pattern of a molded object to be molded on the tire side to be inspected and a master image of the tire side, the master image being prepared when the molded object(s) and an unnecessary molded object(s) are molded together as a conforming article, a model pattern locating unit for locating the model pattern on the captured image of the tire side to be inspected in a position of the captured image showing a highest degree of agreement, and an unnecessary molded object location identifying unit for identifying a location of the unnecessary molded object from the captured image by comparing the position of the model pattern located on the captured image against a position of the model pattern on the master image.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.