The cross shaft is a component that enables the transmission of power at varying angles, used in positions where the direction of the drive shaft needs to be changed. It is the 'joint' part of the universal transmission device in the automotive drive system, and its manufacturing precision is very important to ensure the safety of the vehicle. It requires full inspection of the cold extruded cross shaft blanks. Due to the mass production of small cross shafts, with tens of thousands of cold extruded blanks produced daily per machine, manual inspection is inefficient and prone to missed and false detections. Therefore, there is an urgent need to research an efficient, non-destructive, and fully automatic detection technology.

The key project detection of the cross shaft analyzes a certain cross shaft cold extrusion blank. During the cold extrusion process, due to substandard raw material quality, unstable pressure from the press advancement, unstable locking pressure of the press, oil leaks from the cylinder or distributor, and loosening of positioning pins, the following issues are likely to occur: (1) Length of both ends of the cross shaft (37.20.2) mm out of tolerance; (2) Inner and outer height of the cross shaft (10.70.2) mm and 15.40-0.4mm out of tolerance; (3) Four shaft diameters (10.28 0.10) mm too large; (4) Straightness of the shaft diameter out of tolerance, shaft bending; (5) Misalignment when closing the upper and lower molds at the shaft diameter; (6) End face cracks, shaft diameter cracks, mold breakage, and other appearance issues. From the above detection focus, there is detection of dimensional errors, detection of form and position errors, and detection of appearance quality. The inspection of appearance must be achieved through a visual recognition system, which consists of a cross shaft holder and rotator, workstation switching mechanism, smart camera, and detection control system, capable of detecting dimensional errors and form and position errors of the cross shaft as well as automatic sorting, thus realizing the fully automated production of automotive cross shaft cold extrusion.