Rapid inspection for shaft parts in the automotive field

Manual sorting of automotive shaft parts has long been plagued by bottlenecks, such as low efficiency, high error rates, substantial costs, and the inability to meet the demands of large-scale full inspection. To address these issues, this paper presents the development of a specialized rapid inspection machine designed explicitly for automotive shaft parts. Tailored to production environments, this machine incorporates a flexible automatic loading and unloading linear gantry mechanism. It is equipped with key mechanical structures, including a positive and negative detection and total length measurement component, an outer diameter detection component, and an outer diameter detection and dual-flank meshing cross-bar distance measurement component. A data acquisition, analysis, and motion control system centered around a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) has been established. Concurrently, an intuitive and user-friendly interface measurement software has been developed. This machine enables the online rapid measurement of critical parameters, such as the total length of the workpiece, the outer diameters of multiple shafts, and the cross-bar distances of the gear shaft. Moreover, it automatically classifies the measurement results into qualified products, repaired products, and unqualified products through intelligent sorting. Experimental results indicate that the instrument operates stably with its precision meeting the design requirements. The standard deviation is no more than 0.02 mm for the total length measurements of workpieces and no more than 0.001 mm for the measurements of other indicators. The measurement cycle is controlled within 9 s, and the sorting function is stable and accurate. The research described in this paper offers solutions for the efficient, precise, and comprehensive 100% online inspection of automotive shaft parts.