Autoneum are a manufacturer of automotive lining materials and carpets to some of the biggest car brands in the world including Jaguar Landrover, Audi and Volvo. They produce raw blanks for everything from car mats to floor liners, sound baffles and heat barriers. Car manufacturers then take these blanks and form specific parts for their models and makes of vehicle.
The strict quality control standards insisted upon by their clients mean their manufacturing process is both high-tech and high precision. This ensures consistency across any and all batches of the same liner or carpet. The quality control task identified involved squares of carpet up to 2m x 2m being measured for thinness or where the pile of the carpet was below a minimum thickness.
By presenting a bright light behind a test sample of carpet, clusters of pin-hole light become visible in any areas where the weave is not close enough or the pile not thick enough. This can be manually inspected by a technician by getting up close to the surface and moving across in a logical grid pattern. Alternatively a faster solution is to photograph the sample from a set distance and use software to help identify inconsistencies.