G3F is a smart, portable, pocket-sized, non-contact laser triangulation IoT sensor for measuring gap and flush. Its unique features are enabled by the implementation of artificial intelligence fully incorporated into the system platform, to support the operator in performing his measurement tasks and to improve the metrological performance of laser scanners on the wide range of surfaces present in assemblies today’s automotive industry, many of which are optically uncooperative.

Patent Status

PENDING

Priority Number

102018000003247

Priority Date

02/03/2018

License

INTERNATIONAL

Market

The Laser Sensors Market is valued at $989.45 M in 2020 and is expected to grow over the coming years to reach $1,699.82 M in 2026. CAGR 2021-26: 9.61%. Laser technologies are enabling technologies and increasingly used in manufacturing processes in various sectors

In the AUTOMOTIVE sector: there are more than 500 automotive factories in the world that produce passenger cars.

Europe is the largest car manufacturer with more than 250 factories, of which about 142 produce the whole car. Approximately 10 G3F could be used for each production line.

Problem

The existing problem within the car production line is the lack of sensors that can be used by production line operators to measure the gap and flush, capable of guaranteeing measurements with acceptable uncertainty on different materials and colors, which have ergonomic acceptable by the operators and could be interfaced with the factory network. Gap and flush measurements are necessary during the vehicle assembly phases to guarantee both the functionality of the car and its aesthetics and must be done several times, both on the assembly line and on the finished vehicle. To date, in OEM systems, the operator checks the gap using a simple feeler gauge, while the flush is checked by the operator manually, by touching the parts, and sometimes measured with a manual dial gauge.

Following the trends dictated by Industry 4.0 and fueled by the need to objectify the conformity assessment of these two quantities and make the measured data available digitally, the request arose to develop a portable instrument, easily adaptable to the manual operations carried out by the operator and which guaranteed operation on different types of materials and working conditions. The G3F instrument developed during the European project H2020 GOODMAN (contract n. 723764 , GO0D MAN-project.eu), exploiting the expertise available in the Thermal and Mechanical Measurements group of the DIISM of the Polytechnic University of Marche, has satisfied the specifications of a large OEM, ensuring the achievement of the pre-set production parameters.

Current technologies limits / Solutions

In most automotive final assembly lines around the world, operators take measurements primarily with hand feeler gauges. These instruments are very small and ergonomic, however they do not capture any data and the measurement information is simply used by the operator to perform his/her task. Other digital instruments are present on the market, but they are mainly dedicated to laboratory or automatic measurements, for example on board robots, therefore with higher performance not required on the production line and with reduced ergonomics, not suitable for use by an operator. There are two main companies on the market that offer “Hand-Held” systems: the English Third Dimension and the Austrian Nextsense GmbH. In both cases, the sensors are larger in size and do not work on all surfaces.

The G3F differs from existing solutions and represents an innovation for the sector that arises from a specific need of automotive OEMs; at least 50 gap&flush measurements must be performed by operators during the final assembly of a car and there is a need to track and record these data.

Killer Application

The main applications of this technology are:

  • Non-contact gap and flush measurement in the automotive industry
  • Gap and flush measurement in the appliance sector
  • Profile measurement in various industries

Technology and our solution

G3F is a smart, portable, pocket-sized, non-contact laser triangulation sensor for measuring gap and flush. Its unique features are enabled by the implementation of artificial intelligence fully incorporated into the system platform, to support the operator in performing his measurement tasks and to improve the metrological performance of laser scanners on the wide range of surfaces present in assemblies today’s automotive industry, many of which are optically uncooperative.

The idea emerged during the European GO0DMAN project, where the first prototypes of the G3F were developed and validated for 3 months on the production line of VW AutoEuropa which was one of the project partners. At the end of the project, the G3F was patented (patent n. 102018000003247) and VW AutoEuropa expressed its interest in having a product with industrial characteristics. To respond to this need, the start-up U-SENSE.IT srl was founded, a spin-off of the Polytechnic University of the Marche, with the aim of engineering, industrialising and bringing the G3F to the market, as an IoT device no longer based on smartphone, but equipped with an autonomous digital platform.

The new version has already been designed and the first prototypes of the new version of the G3F are about to be produced as part of a new European project Horzon Europe OpenZDM, also in partnership with VW AutoEuropa. U-Sense.it is therefore ready to start with a new validation phase, to verify that the new version of G3F also meets the requirements.

Advantages

In the perspective of a digital factory, the lack of immediately available information and a digital copy of the measured data compromises any possible analysis of the process which is instead seen as a priority for a Zero Defect production strategy. In this production and market context, various advantages are therefore recognized in the use of the proposed gap and flush measurement instrument, such as:

  • reduction of production costs which, on the basis of the tests carried out, can be quantified in a 15% reduction of the cars that must undergo realignment operations;
  • reduction of inspection times. An average time taken by the operator to carry out n. 93 measurements (gap + flush) in as many inspection points, for an activity time of 10 minutes for each car. Since the G3F instrument allows simultaneous measurement of GAP and Flush values, this can be said to reduce the inspection time by approximately 50%.
  • reduction of defects on the line. Indeed, it has been calculated that, considering the actual values ​​for non-compliant cars, an average of 1.55% of cars need to be realigned. Based on our testing, a 10% decrease in realignment needs is expected.

All these considerations highlight how the G3F tool brings real and measurable benefits to the automotive manufacturing sector, with an immediate ROI.

Roadmap

At the end of the European GoodMAN project, the G3F sensor based on a smartphone was at a TRL 5, covered by an Italian patent. In October 2020, the members of the university development team founded, together with other external partners, the spin-off U-Sense.IT srl which deals with finalizing the sensor for its industrialization and marketing it. G3F has been completely re-engineered as an IoT device, a new patent covers the use of AI.

So the roadmap provides for the certification and marketing of the sensor by U-Sense.It srl by the end of 2023. Currently the G3F is at a TRL 6.

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