2019 Innovators Awards: Gold-level honorees

Gold-level award honorees of our 2019 Innovators Awards Program are as follows (categories in parentheses):

AEye (Pleasanton, CA, USA; www.aeye.ai): AE110 Artificial Perception System (Vision systems). The AE110 artificial perception system for self-driving cars is built on solid-state patented LiDAR and fuses 1550 nm, solid-state agile MOEMS LiDAR, a low-light HD camera, and embedded AI to intelligently capture data at the sensor level, enabling the collection of 4 to 8 times the information of conventional, fixed pattern LiDAR at a fraction of the energy.

CCS Inc. (Kyoto, Japan; www.ccs-grp.com): OLF Series OLED Lights. (Lighting, lenses, and optics). The OLF Series is built using organic LEDs (OLEDs), which are a thin and lightweight alternative to regular LEDs. The OLEDS feature a 3-mm thickness, built-in integrated circuit chip, and are available in red and white. Additionally, the OLEDs feature the CCS-LT (LifeTime Technology) Controller, designed specifically for OLED lights, which is a constant current controller that supports both continuous and overdrive mode.

CCS Inc. (Kyoto, Japan; www.ccs-grp.com): LSS Series Open Architecture Solution for Computational Imaging (Lighting, lenses, and optics). The LSS-2404 programmable lighting controller from CCS was developed primarily to serve as the “heart” of any computational imaging system. Combined with special-purpose computational imaging lights and software, also available from CCS, there is now an alternative approach that can improve image quality or produce images that were previously impossible.

Cognex (Natick, MA, USA; www.cognex.com): VisionPro ViDi (Software). Cognex Corporation’s VisionPro ViDi deep learning-based image analysis software is optimized for factory automation. VisionPro ViDi combines artificial intelligence with Cognex’s VisionPro machine vision software and features ViDi Blue (feature localization and identification), ViDi Red (segmentation and defect detection), and ViDi Green (object and scene classification.)

Inspekto (Tel Aviv, Israel; www.inspekto.com): Inspekto S70 (Vision systems). The Inspekto S70 is an autonomous machine vision system that can be installed and set up without a systems integrator (SI) in just 30-60 minutes, straight out of the box, according to the company. Included with the Inspekto S70 is a monochrome GigE vision sensor with integrated lighting, an arm, and an industrial PC running Linux with an NVIDIA graphics card and Intel CPU processor.

Silicon Software (Mannheim, Germany; https://silicon.software): deep VCL deep learning-optimized frame grabber (Frame grabbers and boards). Silicon Software’s microEnable 5 marathon deepVCL (Camera Link interface), is the first frame grabber in the company’s “CNN Ready” series that will execute CNNs at more than 250MB/s processing speed. At VISION 2018, a deep learning demo was shown, in which one microEnable 5 marathon deepVCL frame grabber enabled a 4096-pixel monochrome line scan camera to run at 20MHz via Camera Link Medium interface.

Neousys Technology Inc. (New Taipei City, Taiwan; www.neousys-tech.com): Nuvo-7164GC Series (Embedded vision). Neousys’ Nuvo-7164GC combines powerful Intel 8th Gen Core^TM i processor and NVIDIA Tesla P4 or T4 GPUs in a compact solution. Designed for applications requiring advanced inference acceleration, the computers feature six GigE ports, four USB 3.1 Gen2 ports, four USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, and expansion capabilities via the patented MezIO^TM interface from Neousys.

Keyence Corporation of America (Elmwood Park, NJ, USA; www.keyence.com): Line Scan LumiTrax (Vision systems). Featuring new algorithms for automatic defect inspection, the Line Scan LumiTrax system is targeted at applications involving glossy, transparent, and mirrored surfaces. Instead of using a 2D camera and ring light, this uses a 1D camera and bar light with high-speed striped lighting to illuminate shape features, flatness, and diffused images at the same time.

LUCID Vision Labs (Richmond, BC, Canada; www.thinklucid.com): Helios ToF 3D (Cameras, 3D). LUCID’s Helios ToF 3D camera has four 850nm VCSEL laser diodes and integrates Sony’s new DepthSense IMX556PLR back-illuminated ToF image sensor with high NIR sensitivity, 10μm pixel size and high modulation contrast ratio. The camera can produce depth data at 60 fps with 640×480 resolution over a PoE Gigabit Ethernet interface. The camera has a precision of 2.5mm at 1m and 4.5mm at 2m.

FLIR Systems (Richmond, BC, Canada; www.flir.com/mv): FLIR Firefly (Embedded vision). Firefly is an ultra-compact (27 x 27 x 14 mm) camera which leverages an Intel Movidius Myriad 2 Vision Processing Unit (VPU) to enable inference on-camera. With Firefly, machine vision system designers can develop and deploy deep-learning-based solutions. The camera features a monochrome 1.58 MPixel Sony IMX296 CMOS sensor, which offers frame rates up to 60 fps through a USB 3.1 Gen 1 interface.

LMI Technologies (Burnaby, BC, Canada; www.lmi3d.com): Gocator 2500 series (Vision systems). The Gocator 2510 and 2520 high-speed laser line profilers are designed for small parts inspection and feature a custom high-speed image sensor, FPGA processing, inspection rates up to 10 kHz, while generating 3D scans down to 8 µm X resolution. The IP67 devices also feature built-in measurement tools for 3D alignment, part segmentation, and 3D feature extraction, as well as an onboard processing pipeline.

Sony Image Sensing Solutions (Weybridge, UK; www.image-sensing-solutions.eu): XCG-CP510 polarized camera and SDK (Cameras, visible). In 2018, Sony Europe’s Image Sensing Solutions division launched the XCG-CP510. The polarized light camera module makes use of Sony’s IMX250MZR sensor with on-chip polarization. In addition, Sony launched an SDK, which provides a dedicated image processing library to speed solution development, as well as numerous functions, such as stress measurement, glare reduction, and support functions such as demosaic and raw extraction.

Solomon (Taipei, Taiwan; www.solomon-3d.com): AccuPick 3D (Vision systems). Solomon’s AccuPick 3D system offers a bin picking solution based on artificial intelligence-based software (neural networks) that recognizes complex objects. The solution is hardware agnostic and supports multiple 3D scanning technologies and 16 major robot brands. AccuPick 3D also features a fast motion planning module, ensuring that robot and gripper do not come into contact with the bin.

Next page: Platinum-level honorees

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