A content based retrieval engine for circuit board inspection

In this paper we apply content based retrieval (CBR) to the automated inspection of printed circuit boards. Manual probing of faulty circuit boards is expensive and time consuming for electronics manufacturers. The proposed CBR system allows groups of similarly faulted boards to be identified and repaired simultaneously. We improve upon current matching techniques used in CBR, exploiting relative pairings of features rather than simple distance measures. The novel matching techniques are seen to improve upon traditional approach in cases of varying background conditions, environmental factors and inter-chip interactions.