Patent ID: 9528942
Filing Date: 2016-12-27
CPC Classification: G01N,G06T,Y10T

Claim Text:
1. A surface inspection system for inspecting a surface of a workpiece, the workpiece having an edge, an interior area, and an edge area, the surface inspection system comprising: an illumination subsystem that projects an incident beam through a back quartersphere and toward a desired location on the surface to impinge thereon to create reflected light, extending along a light channel axis in a front quartersphere, and scattered light; a collection subsystem that collects the reflected light and the scattered light and generates signals in response, comprising: a light channel assembly, positioned on the light channel axis to receive and collect the reflected light, the light channel assembly comprising a reflected beam detector for detecting the reflected beam; a front collector disposed in the front quartersphere and positioned adjacent to the light channel assembly to simultaneously receive and collect a portion of the scattered light within a front collection field, the front collector having an edge exclusion masking means that is arranged to block the scattered light and the reflected light inside the front collection field only during impinging of the incident beam on the edge area of the workpiece; and a processing subsystem operatively coupled to the collection subsystem that processes the signals received from the collection subsystem to provide information about the surface of the workpiece.