Machine vision has been regarded as a tireless production quality controller, which detects deviations more reliably than the human eye. Machine vision solutions have been successfully used to improve production processes and reduce material losses in the paper and steel industries, for example. With machine vision, it has been possible to achieve production increases of 1–10% and reduce material losses by 25–50%.
Machine vision plays an important role in the improvement of road safety and development of autonomous vehicles.
Machine vision has been widely used in the industrial sector already for over 30 years. Recently, the machine vision technology has taken major development steps creating new application possibilities. The EU and NASA have selected machine vision as one of their future spearhead technologies.
Automation and digitalization of industrial production processes and social service activities have brought machine vision again to the center of development. Machine vision plays an important role in the improvement of road safety and development of autonomous vehicles.
The significance of machine vision continues to grow in the further development of industrial production line automation. It can be said that machine vision turns a tireless robot into a seeing machine that is capable of adapting itself into its environment more and more flexibly.
From simple measuring to complex analysis
Machine vision is by no means a new invention. Pioneers in machine vision have developed integrated machine vision solutions as part of the process industry automation already since the mid 1980s. The CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) image sensor invented in the mid 1990s revolutionized the camera technology. Along with the development of CMOS sensors, the processing capacity of machine vision cameras increased giving birth to a “smart camera” that operates as a completely independent automation device. The next development step was 3D imaging, which enabled achievement of accurate topography and reliable measuring data from 3-dimensional objects and surfaces.
The newest wave of innovation in machine vision technology is represented by hyperspectral cameras that are capable of imaging out to new wavelengths, well beyond the spectral range of the human eye. Application possibilities for accurate imaging can be found from both traditional industry and health technology.
Distance sensors.
Machine vision solution – an important part of the production process and intelligent factory
The rapidly evolving machine vision technology can be widely applied in different sectors. Microscopically accurate machine vision can be used to acquire real-time information from production and products, such as shapes, colors and surface structure. Imaging based on machine vision efficiently produces digital information that can be utilized, for example, in measuring, production control and analysis, quality control and optimization.
Future machine vision solutions will be comprehensive production process optimizers and controllers. Automation and production control systems are capable of exploiting information collected in a more efficient way than before with algorithms of artificial intelligence mining key figures from massive datasets to optimize and forecast operations. It can be said that machine vision plays a significant role in technological development.
In our upcoming blog posts, we will discuss the results obtained with machine vision solutions in different sectors and different industrial processes.
Imaging based on machine vision efficiently produces digital information.
Machine vision has been widely used in the industrial sector already for over 30 years.
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