Focus on Vision: September 9, 2022

Amazon is Testing an Autonomous and Collaborative Robot

The autonomous robot is called Proteus, and Amazon plans to incorporate it into the same physical spaces where people work. Using perception and navigation technology developed in-house, “the robot was built to be automatically directed to perform its work and move around employees—meaning it has no need to be confined to restricted areas,” as is currently the case, Amazon says in a news release.

While Amazon did not disclose the vision technologies that Proteus is equipped with, Brennan says many of these types of robots incorporate time-of-flight (ToF) based 3D vision.

Focus on Vision: August 26, 2022

Focus on Vision: August 12, 2022

Focus on Vision: July 29, 2022

Lens Specs Matter—Do Your Homework

I have three theories, and I’d welcome your thoughts on them.

First, there is the folly of youth theory—it’s simply a case of a new engineer making a rookie mistake. If that’s the case, listen to me: do your homework before calling or emailing asking for lens help. But before you think I am picking on young engineers, please know that I am not, because young engineers are quick learners, and I am always happy to help them. Let’s get to theories two and three, which throw the lasso around those with more experience.

My second theory is that they have simply grown lazy. “Come on, optical lens solution provider, it’s just a lens—figure it out.”

Figure it out? Just a lens? The lens is going to dictate the performance of your optical system. I’d be happy to “figure it out” with you, because getting the lens right is a collaboration. It takes two, and you are half of the equation. If you provide zero effort, and I put in 100 percent, we still get a 50. That may pass on a curve in college, but it will torpedo your optical system in real life and cost your company valuable time, resources, and dollars. It may also cost you your reputation.

My third theory is that even experienced optical engineers forget sometimes. So, let this article serve as a reminder: the more specificity you can give your lens provider up front, the more efficiently your optical system will get built and, ultimately, perform.

Vision System Enables Robotic Picking at Industrial Bakery

A Finland-based industrial bakery needed to replace a manual operation deemed inefficient and fallible. The operation entailed taking packaged baked goods coming down a conveyor into bins for transport. The bakery enlisted KINE (Turku, Finland; www.kine.fi), a Finnish provider of custom turnkey robotics solutions to develop an automated solution. The solution called for a conveyor tracking system with on-the-fly robotic picking of bags of bread loaves and rolls. There were various challenges to overcome, including the products’ irregular shapes and sizes as well as transparent plastic packaging causing low contrast and partial reflections, which made it difficult to detect the product using optical sensors. KINE quickly determined it needed a solution that incorporated machine vision.