A Model-Based Fault-Tolerant Weld Line Detection for Automatic Inspection of Storage Tanks Using Visual Information and a-ß Filter

Quality control, cost reduction and above all, human and environmental safety are great reasons that stimulate the investments in technologies such as automatic inspection. The automatic inspection of weld lines in storage tanks is of special interest due to the fact that such tanks are currently used to store harmful products. For a reliable inspection it is necessary to accurately detect the weld line position. In this paper the development of a system to perform weld line detection in storage tanks is proposed. The system based on visual information is implemented and tested. Such system makes use of a fault-tolerant estimation process based on the α-β filter and a model-based fault detection method, proposed in this paper.