Future of Machine Vision and Sensors
“47 percent of industry experts are expecting the market to continue its growth in the first half of 2017, 43 percent believe sales will remain flat, and 10 percent expect a contraction,” said Alex Shikany, AIA’s Director of Market Analysis. “Regarding the largest category, machine vision systems, 46 percent of survey respondents believe the category will increase, 44 percent expect stagnation, and 10 percent expect a decline. Stronger optimism is present regarding vision component markets, where 57 percent think sales will increase, 36% are expecting sales to be flat, and only 7 percent expect declines.”
Latest Technology: As we all know, Inspection has been one of the most prominent applications of machine vision since advent of the field. Begin in automotive and then spreading to all levels of industry, automated inspection equipment has vastly increased the quality of manufactured products all around the world.
For most of the modern era, 2D imaging has been used but in order to keep pace with changing technologies and growing demands 3D smart sensors are ready. 2D sensor technology is not appropriate for all kinds of inspection tasks where operating environment is too complex or threaded components are used. 3D smart sensors are suitable for non-contact inspection which making them to stretch not only in standard manufacturing environments but in food, medical, and much more. They provide robust scanning, measurement, and quality control functionality in three main areas:
Positional, dimensional, and other advanced verification tasks complicated in 2D
Volume optimization for breakdown of a wide range of materials, such as wood;
Detailed characterization of a variety of surface materials and material textures.
Operational benefits of 3D smart sensors
3D smart sensors include user interface, setup, measurement tools, and all required communication which enable them to seamlessly replace multiple legacy inspection devices. Thus reducing complexity of Imaging System.
Instead of a standard Windows operating suite, 3D smart systems offer purpose-built, low-latency architecture for native real- time data processing.
Versatile Communications Compatibility is very important factor with advancing technology
Full-scale automation and self-correcting operational optimization will soon be the reality for many manufacturing environments. In this scenario, high-fidelity data communication is key to success. 3D smart sensors offer built-in compatibility with multiple communications protocols.
Although it may be some time before 3D smart sensor technology truly replace conventional 2D inspection tools, the case for its greater efficiency and performance is already established. As these systems become less costly to implement, the benefits are sure to lead to a reassessment of how even the most fundamental inspection tasks are handled.
