Deep Learning Automated System for Thermal Defectometry of Multilayer Materials

Currently, along with growth in industrial production, the requirements for product quality testing are also increasing. In the tasks of defectoscopy and defectometry of multilayer materials, the use of thermal nondestructive testing method is promising. At the same time, interpretation of thermal testing data is complicated by a number of factors, which makes the use of traditional methods of data processing ineffective. Therefore, an urgent task is to search for new methods of thermal testing that will automate the diagnostic process and increase information content of obtained results. The purpose of article is to use the advances in deep learning for processing results of active thermal testing of products made of multilayer materials and development of an automated system for thermal defectoscopy and defectometry of such products. The proposed system consists of a heating source, an infrared camera for recording sequences of thermograms and a digital information processing unit. Three neural network modules are used for automated data processing, each of which performs one of the tasks: defects detection and classification, determination of the defect depth and thickness. The software algorithms and user interface for interacting with system are programmed in the NI LabVIEW development environment.Experimental studies on samples made of multilayer fiberglass have shown a significant advantage of the developed system over using traditional methods for analyzing thermal testing data. The defect classification (determining the type) error on the test dataset was 15.7 %. Developed system ensured determination of defect depth with a relative error of 3.2 %, as well as the defect thickness with a relative error of 3.5 %.