Vision-Based On-Loom Measurement of Yarn Densities in Woven Fabrics

A vision-based measurement system to quantify the yarn density of woven fabrics during production is presented. As an extension to an earlier developed fabric flaw detection system, the proposed framework consists of a combination of basic and custom-made image-processing techniques that allow to precisely track single wefts and warps within fabric images - in real-time. Several adaptations facilitate the measurement of density changes for plain, satin, and twill weaves. In this paper, the algorithmic framework has been evaluated in several comprehensive on-line experiments on a real-world air-jet loom and is additionally compared with three alternative methods for fabric density measurement. It proved to be precise, robust, and applicable for industrial use as it overcomes many of the existing shortcomings of current methods.