By Stephen Kress, Automotive Market Specialist, Cognex Corp.
MACHINE VISION IS hardly an emerging technology. Users in a variety of industries have been effectively putting vision systems to work in machine guidance and quality control applications for more than a decade. But until recently, the systems have required a high level of technical skill and programming expertise that has limited applications to manufacturers with in-house expertise or large projects involving qualified system integrators.
What has changed? Most importantly, the systems themselves have become more powerful while gaining much greater ease of use. Thanks to advances in several related technologies—especially computer interfaces and microprocessors—machine vision has evolved into a highly capable and flexible tool for both mass-production and custom manufacturing of suppliers and OEMs alike.