Pole tip corrosion detection using various image processing techniques

In this paper, three features are proposed for detecting the pole tip corrosion in the hard disk drives by using various techniques of image processing. The proposed method is divided into three parts. The first part involves with preparing the template image of the pole tip. The second part involves with selecting a region of interest. The third part involves with constructing the three features. The first feature is the area around the top shield of the pole tip. The second and third features are the row coordinate and the length along the lower edge around the top shield, respectively. Finally, the last part involves with measuring the detection efficiency. From experimental results with the 647 tested pole tip images, this shows that the method using the combination of the first feature and the second feature gives the better detection efficiency than that using the combination of the others in term of specification, precision and accuracy, respectively.