Business models
Vision of the future
Keely Portway on some of the key factors that could have an impact on the way the machine vision world does business
A
s the worldwide machine vision market continues to expand – with new trends emerging and new elements coming
into play that could impact existing business models – companies are searching for those ever-important opportunities to stimulate growth. One such trend is almost certainly embedded
vision, although the technology behind it is not new, as Mark Williamson, managing director at Stemmer Imaging, noted: ‘Embedded vision is a big topic. However, it has been here a long time, because every smart camera that you buy is an embedded vision system.’ Te big difference, said Williamson, is that
historically an embedded vision system was a custom solution, with high development costs to build the hardware from components and create it. ‘Tat was great for people like Teledyne Dalsa and Cognex, but for someone that wanted to spend a few hundred products, the cost was prohibitive.’ Generally, embedded vision is using the
same kinds of processor that are used in mobile
phones, which are powerful pieces of equipment. Camera companies like Allied Vision and Basler are producing modules that will connect directly to embedded boards. ‘Now you’re in a situation where you have got the ability to create an embedded vision system without having to go and design everything from scratch,’ Williamson said. Williamson also attributes soſtware
development as a factor. ‘Five years ago, there were almost no commercial machine vision libraries available for embedded platforms, so companies would have to develop everything themselves,’ he said. But now soſtware libraries are oſten supported on Arm and other embedded platforms, so a camera can be plugged into an embedded board and the development soſtware installed to build a vision system. ‘Tere are companies that will take a standard
design and if you want to buy, say 1,000 or 2,000 pieces, they will modify those designs to meet the OEM’s needs. Tat’s a lot cheaper than starting from scratch.’ Williamson believes that the traditional
machine vision market will also remain. ‘Te PC is still a more powerful machine, and there’s a lot of flexibility in a PC-based vision system. But, for the higher volumes, where price and size is critical, you’ll see more of those applications go to embedded.’ He added that the real growth from embedded vision will be new applications where PCs weren’t previously viable. Joost van Kuijk, VP of marketing and
technology at Adimec, also cited embedded vision as a key factor in the industry’s future. ‘Tere are a number of technological challenges in machine vision that the industry is faced with. Other industries, like surveillance or consumer, are using vision more in an embedded way, so
12 Imaging and Machine Vision Europe • Yearbook 2018/2019
I would call that the technology threat for the industry.’ Van Kuijk added that engineers generally don’t
want to see the images anymore, but they do want to know about the decisions that are made by the vision system. Williamson also touched on artificial
intelligence, predicting that the industry will need to give it greater consideration. ‘We have seen over the last five years a massive cost reduction in camera pricing,’ he said. Te camera, however, is only a small part of the vision system, and the biggest cost, according to Williamson, is time. ‘Te time, research and knowledge, that’s what makes a system successful or not,’ he stated. ‘I think artificial intelligence, in the long
term, will capture that information,’ Williamson continued. ‘So, almost at the design stage, the vision systems will know what it can be.’ He said
@imveurope
www.imveurope.com
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