Station for checking tyres for vehicle wheels
AssigneePirelli Tyre S.p.A.
InventorsVincenzo Boffa, Luca Tersi, Valeriano Ballardini
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A station for checking a tyre for vehicle wheels. The checking station includes a background with a support surface lying on a plane perpendicular to a reference axis, an image acquisition apparatus to acquire an image of the tyre arranged with a first outer lateral surface in contact with the support surface and a second outer lateral surface facing the image acquisition apparatus, an illumination system and a computer for generating a working image from the acquired image. The image acquisition apparatus, the illumination system and of the background are arranged to generate a contrast, in the working image, between the entire second outer lateral surface of the tyre and an area circumferentially surrounding the tyre.
Claims26
A checking station for checking a tyre for vehicle wheels, comprising:
- a background comprising a support surface for the tyre, the support surface lying on a plane perpendicular to a reference axis;
- an image acquisition apparatus configured to acquire at least one image of the tyre arranged with a first outer lateral surface of the tyre in contact with the support surface and a second outer lateral surface of the tyre facing the image acquisition apparatus;
- an illumination system configured to illuminate the tyre by illuminating at least the second outer lateral surface of the tyre and an area circumferentially surrounding the tyre, the circumferentially surrounding area corresponding to at least one part of the background, including at least one part of the support surface;
- and
- a computer configured to generate a working image from the at least one acquired image of the tyre, the working image comprising the second outer lateral surface of the tyre and the circumferentially surrounding area;
- wherein:
- the image acquisition apparatus, the illumination system and the background are configured to generate a contrast, in the working image, between at least the entire second outer lateral surface of the tyre and the circumferentially surrounding area, in terms of color or grey level, among pixels in the working image that correspond to the at least the entire second outer lateral surface of the tyre and among pixels in the working image that correspond to the circumferentially surrounding area,
- the illumination system is configured to illuminate, in a single step or in multiple successive illumination steps, at least the entire second outer lateral surface of the tyre according to an angularly uniform illumination with respect to the reference axis, and
- acquisition of the at least one image of the tyre through the image acquisition apparatus and illumination of the tyre through the illumination system are carried out with the tyre in a stationary condition.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.