Several trade shows in June encompassed the world of machine vision. While The Vision Show in Boston provided a view of OEM products available to system integrators, Munich’s AUTOMATICA showed the breadth of automated and robotic systems, many of which incorporate machine-vision components.
In Boston, about 120 exhibitors and 2500 attendees registered for The Vision Show, while AUTOMATICA featured 870 exhibitors and more than 30,000 visitors. This difference in scale obviously reflects the size of the markets represented, with a relatively limited number of OEM machine-vision components being used in distinctive systems that embrace a large number of markets. For example, end users of both machine vision and automated or robotic systems could be found at Intersolar 2008, also held in Munich in June. Dedicated to manufacturers of photovoltaics and to providers of solar-energy services, the show was held concurrently with Automatica and in the same New Trade Fair Centre and drew considerably more than 1000 exhibitors and 50,000 attendees.
Food chain
Describing how to design machine-vision applications for such disparate markets is the raison d’etre of this publication, as you will realize when reading the many articles in this issue. One manufacturer of piping for industrial and commercial uses, for example, has used a 3-D laser-triangulation system to ensure the quality of its products. As contributing editor Winn Hardin writes, this complex multilayer piping is checked by an FPGA-based camera just before welding. Another article by Hardin describes how multiple GigE cameras are used in conjunction with a custom robotic placement system to place semiconductor dies on a tape reel.
Aerospace applications are also embracing robots and machine vision. An article by editor Andy Wilson describes the design of a robotic workcell that uses vision to deburr and inspect turbine blades. Wilson shows how machine vision can deliver the speed and precision necessary to ensure a high-quality product that is critical to aviation safety and efficiency.
At the heart of many of these systems is the smart camera. In his Product Focus feature, Andy Wilson shows how these cameras now include embedded processors and digital I/O, making them capable of functioning as complete machine-vision systems.
In an ideal world, a comprehensive machine-vision trade show would feature booths showing all machine-vision-related OEM components, demonstrations of how these could be integrated into systems, and end-user equipment ‘borrowed’ from a factory floor. At such a fantasy show, end users would openly discuss how they had implemented a vision-based system to, for example, assemble and test a photovoltaic cell. This show would have to last at least five days and occupy tens of thousands of square feet. Until such a show can be created, our editorial team will deliver this information by way of Vision Systems Design, in print and online.
W. Conard Holton, Editor in Chief
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