Estimation of Position of Lathe Tool Using Edge Detection Technique

Accurate positioning of tool in mechanical devices used in smart manufacturing, mechanical automation is of utmost importance. In applications like manufacturing of micro parts, an accuracy of micrometer is required. Thus, it is proposed to opt for an economic fast and accurate tool positioning system which may directly work on the images of the tool taken by a high-resolution camera. This work contributes to estimate the position of a lathe tool using image processing. The tool is considered to move in x-y plane. The movement of the tool is calculated from its origin using Euclidean distance. The coordinates of the vertices of the tool are detected using Edge detection technique. These coordinates are used to estimate the distance travelled by the tool from the origin. Prewitt and Sobel operators are applied for edge estimation and the errors obtained in both Prewitt and Sobel are compared. As a result of experimental analysis Sobel operator is found to give better results. The maximum error obtained is 272.2 µm and the minimum error obtained is 0.1 µm.