Closed-loop Feedback Registration for Consecutive Images of Moving Flexible Targets

TL;DR

This paper introduces a closed-loop feedback registration algorithm that improves the accuracy and speed of matching deformable patterns in consecutive images of moving flexible substrates, crucial for manufacturing quality control.

Contribution

The proposed method uniquely leverages temporal and spatial relationships in image sequences, outperforming existing algorithms in accuracy and efficiency for deformable pattern registration.

Findings

More matching points with lower RMSE than state-of-the-art methods

Significant reduction in registration running time

Enhanced robustness in deformable pattern matching

Abstract

Advancement of imaging techniques enables consecutive image sequences to be acquired for quality monitoring of manufacturing production lines. Registration for these image sequences is essential for in-line pattern inspection and metrology, e.g., in the printing process of flexible electronics. However, conventional image registration algorithms cannot produce accurate results when the images contain many similar and deformable patterns in the manufacturing process. Such a failure originates from a fact that the conventional algorithms only use the spatial and pixel intensity information for registration. Considering the nature of temporal continuity and consecution of the product images, in this paper, we propose a closed-loop feedback registration algorithm for matching and stitching the deformable printed patterns on a moving flexible substrate. The algorithm leverages the temporal and spatial relationships of the consecutive images and the continuity of the image sequence for fast, accurate, and robust point matching. Our experimental results show that our algorithm can find more matching point pairs with a lower root mean squared error (RMSE) compared to other state-of-the-art algorithms while offering significant improvements to running time.