Robotization of the IR-Thermographic technique – impact on the visualisation quality and considerations on the data workflow

Quality control automation is becoming increasingly popular in industrial production lines. Active thermography techniques are well-regarded for their adaptability, providing fast, non-contact, and full-field non-destructive evaluation. Automating thermographic evaluation can increase assessment speed and repeatability without sacrificing inspection accuracy. By using a robot arm to manipulate the thermographic setup, it becomes possible to inspect large components and refine scans on suspicious zones, even in parts with complex geometries. In this study, the performance of a new thermographic inspection platform is compared with a conventional setup to showcase the potential improvements. A plastic curved-shaped sample with artificial flat bottom hole defects is used as a benchmark for the comparison. The advantages and disadvantages of robotizing the infrared non-destructive setup are analyzed, and the impact of the data workflow and future research activities are also discussed.