Market-driven innovations in masonry stones and glue bricks call for automated production lines offering tighter tolerancing. Quality control as well as increasing robotization set complex challenges for construction material manufacturers and production line integrators. APIXA assists them by analyzing their challenges, proposing dedicated solutions, and iterating these solutions further to maximize performance and robustness.
The milling of brick slips, to be glued on wooden renovation panels, relies on computer vision to obtain sufficient alignment of the textured bricks. Likewise, tolerancing verification performed on glue bricks ultimately avoids skewed brick walls. The dosage of water-repellent coatings applied to bricks needs accuracy and consistency to maintain sufficient mortar attachment to untreated brick sides. Next to quality control purposes, computer vision is helpful in realizing various logistics process automation opportunities, including the volume monitoring of loam reservoirs.
APIXA knows the building materials market and has in-depth expertise of suitable vision sensors, including 3D laser profilers and cameras. Our specialists focus on taking reliable measurements, hereby minimizing the influence of conveyer systems and environmental aspects. They propose the most suitable computer vision inspection system and install and align it for production-grade measurement. Apixa creates algorithms and processes data in support of more accurate and robust quality control. It is an iterative process to ensure that bricks and stones pass inspection for exactly the right reasons. APIXA provides interfaces to share inspection data in support of analysis and reporting.
Bricked renovation panels
The milling of brick slips, to be glued on wooden renovation panels, relies on computer vision to obtain proper alignment of the textured bricks. To avoid irregularities in glued brick arrangements, APIXA advises on the computer vision measurement system and the entire process from brick measurement to inspection decisions. A robust production-proof process is achieved by a perfectly aligned measuring system and smart software processing that knowledgably separates good from bad bricks.
Glue brick inspection
The tolerancing verification performed on glue bricks ultimately avoids skewed brick walls. APIXA computer vision verifies that the top and bottom brick sides are milled exactly in parallel. Our specialists define computer vision algorithms that mathematically apply your specialist judgment with increased accuracy and consistency. As this improves the alignment of bricks with rougher surfaces or deeper textures, the milled cuts are in parallel. In the process, the robust APIXA solution takes into account the impact of conveyor systems and environmental aspects.
Coating bricks for water repellency
Applying water-repellent coatings on bricks is gaining popularity. The dosage of the coatings needs accuracy and consistency to avoid contamination of the untreated brick sides. This will assure fast and consistent drying of the mortar as is the case for uncoated bricks. Rolls treat the front and rear sides of bricks, while computer vision accurately measures the coating intrusion on the other sides of the bricks.
Volume monitoring of reservoirs
Monitoring the fill level of a series of large loam or sand reservoirs is a challenge in automating industrial processes. APIXA defined a robust computer vision solution based on a 2D lidar system which looks down on the loam surface. As the surface is conic instead of flat, the center position is tracked. The wireless data stream feeds an app that instructs suppliers which reservoir to fill next and by when.
Robotized brick handling
Adding intelligence to robotized actions makes automated brick handling processes more robust. Any unexpected situation, such as gravel obstructing brick placement, may mess things up. APIXA specialists are experienced in configuring workable computer vision solutions for complex challenges faced in robotized stone moving and pallet handling. These smart solutions halt the brick handling robot when signaling an erroneous and potentially hazardous situation.
