Automatic Alignment and Mounting of FPCs Using Machine Vision

머신비전을 이용한 FPC의 자동정렬 및 장착

The FPCs(Flexible Printed Circuit) are currently used in several electronic products like digital cameras, cellular phones because of flexible material characteristics. Because the FPC is usually small size and flexible, only one FPC should not enter chip mounting process, instead, several FPCs are placed on the large rigid pallette and enter into the chip mounting process. Currently the job of mounting FPC on the pallette is carried by totally manual way. Thus, the goals of the research is develop the automatic machine of FPC mounting on pallette using vision alignment. Instead of using two cameras or using moving one camera, the proposed vision system with only one fixed camera is adopted. Moreover, the two picker heads which can handle two FPCs simultaneously are used to make process time shortened. The procedure of operation is firstly to measure alignment error of FPC, correct alignment errors, and finally mount well-aligned FPC on the pallette. The vision technology is used to measure alignment error accurately, and precision motion control is used in correcting errors and mounting FPC.