Cognex vision system enables steering knuckle inspection

Automation operations face significant challenges due to frequent inconsistencies when manually assembling steering knuckles, with changes in the position of the knuckle, its surface finish and the positioning of features used to identify the knuckle. During the manual assembly process, the steering knuckle can be mistakenly assembled onto the car, causing a recall issue.

The Cognex vision system installed on the automatic machine is equipped with a patented geometric pattern matching tool that can read features on the steering knuckle surface and identify them. The vision system can automatically adapt to changes in component location, appearance, surface finish and feature spacing. After the vision system determines that the correct steering knuckle has been assembled on the car, it sends the data and images to the factory database for archiving for inventory control.