Nikon develops wireless scanning technology for in-process quality control

Ahead of exhibiting its latest quality assurance technologies at Control 2023 this week, the Industrial Metrology Business Unit of Nikon Corporation has introduced a new wireless technology for its laser scanning sensors. 

The imaging giant said this latest enhancement supports the growing demand for shop floor inspection devices that can communicate wirelessly, and will initially be made available for its high-speed LC15Dx and L100 line scanners.

Going cable-free is said to allow manufacturers the freedom to scan products closer to the point of manufacture, shorten the closed-loop feedback path of metrology data, and eliminate the need to plan for additional wiring. Immediate analysis of results and adjustment of manufacturing parameters can ensure that what is being produced is always within tolerance.

The wireless models have been developed so they can be adapted to support a variety of applications, whether they are mounted on production machines or adapted to metrology equipment. The LC15Dx is said to offer high accuracy, while the L100 with its longer laser line is better suited to 3D scanning of large, complex, free-form shapes such as aerospace parts, dies, moulds and gears.

Nikon product manager Kristof Peeters said: “Our new wireless scanning technology is ideal for supporting in-process quality control on machining centres and 3D printers, avoiding the time-consuming process of taking a component to a quality control room to be checked, a practice that virtually precludes feedback of measurement data to production. There are numerous other target markets as well. The hardware could be adapted for use on coordinate measuring machines, robots or other CNC machines that lack suitable cabling for retrofitting an optical sensor. Again, it depends on what the equipment manufacturer or integrator needs.”

Nikon explained that the non-contact scanners transmit in near real-time over a Wi-Fi link to the dense point cloud data they collect, while maintaining the high data throughput, consistency and accuracy of a wired connection. A primary application, Nikon suggests, is to mount a wireless scanner in the spindle of a 5-axis CNC mill, including hybrid variants capable of both additive and subtractive manufacturing, which can enable worn parts, such as turbine blades, for example, to be iteratively rebuilt, machined and measured until it meets the required specification.