Composite material laser flaw detection

An apparatus for detecting flaws in the placement of composite tows after they have been placed on a substrate, the apparatus comprising:

• a fiber placement machine including a fiber placement head and a control system used to place individual composite tows on the substrate;
• an imaging system coupled to the fiber placement head, the imaging system having a field of view of a portion of individual composite tows that have been placed on the substrate by the fiber placement machine to form the laid up composite surface, the imaging system producing image data representative of the laid up composite surface resulting from placement of the individual composite tows on the substrate;
• a data analysis system that receives the image data produced by the imaging system and analyses the image data to produce data representative of the occurrence of flaws on the composite surface.