3D VISION
Delivering 3D vision’s potential
We gathered a panel of experts to discuss uptake of 3D vision in robot automation. Greg Blackman reports from our webinar
‘O
ur largest competitor of vision, in general, is no vision.’ Tat’s Pickit CEO Peter Soetens’ response
when asked how often 3D vision is used for robot guidance and automation. Pickit makes 3D vision solutions for
robotics, and Soetens listed three areas where 3D vision is opening up applications: bin picking (impossible to solve without 3D vision, he said); depalletising, where items are unloaded from a pallet with a robot; and 3D part localisation, using vision to find a large part in space for the robot to pick it up and perform tasks. But, as Soetens said, vision is not used
as often as it might be because it is often considered complex, costly and beyond the expertise of engineers working on automation solutions, especially if they have limited resources or budget. Oliver Selby, robotics business development manager at Fanuc UK, estimated that 15 to 30 per cent of the robots his firm sells include a 2D or 3D vision system. Fanuc has its own range of integrated vision systems, but also offers solutions from third-party suppliers. Some automation machines don’t need
vision to be effective, but Kamel Saidi, leader of the Sensing and Perception Systems Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), believes 3D vision can open up many more applications, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises. He said the benefit of 3D vision for SMEs, and manufacturing in general, is that it reduces the need for mechanical conveyance systems, jigs and fixtures that would otherwise be required to automate a process. Building a solution with a lot of mechanical fixtures has its own complexities, and if the manufacturer is producing low volumes of parts – and many different parts from month to month
– it can’t invest a lot in infrastructure to automate this. Saidi said: ‘3D vision is an enabler for
robot automation. When a robot starts to understand its surroundings in 3D – not just 2D – we believe that it opens up many possibilities to interact more intelligently with the physical world.’ Te robot doesn’t need as many mechanical fixtures to operate. Working with 3D vision requires its own
levels of expertise, however. Reducing the barrier to entry for 3D vision is something Saidi and his team at NIST are working on by developing standards for industrial 3D vision systems. ‘We feel that standards are the building
blocks of many successful applications of technology, because they help people understand how well the technologies work,’ he said. He added that NIST has ‘talked to a lot
of manufacturers or integrators who want to use 3D machine vision, and who haven’t had their expectations met’, because the terminology behind 3D cameras isn’t defined well enough. Saidi said that terms such as resolution or depth error have to be defined, and the methods for measuring them must also be developed and become standard across industry. A 3D camera might not perform as well
as advertised because the parts the robot is asked to handle keep changing, or the environment – the lighting – changes, for instance. ‘We feel that standards will help bring a common language, a way to talk about all of these things, so that people understand each other better,’ Saidi said. ‘Tat’s a starting point for helping technology become more prevalent.’ Selby agreed, saying that smaller
26 IMAGING AND MACHINE VISION EUROPE FEBRUARY/MARCH 2021
manufacturers looking for robotics and automation tend to try and find a one- solution-fits-all approach, because it gives them the best return on investment. ‘As soon as you look at feeding components to an automation cell, the cost in fixturing components to get them accurate enough to pick and place becomes prohibitive,’ he said. ‘3D vision allows us to essentially not have to fixture those components, and it becomes flexible.’ Selby, at Fanuc UK, has been working on
pick-and-place of battery components for battery packing cells in automotive; also in applications for food, pharmaceutical and assembly of electronic components. In typical food applications or assembly applications, he said that Fanuc aims to pick 60 per minute, which might equate to around 10 to 15fps, depending on the application, along with factors such as the size of field of view. Mark Robson, senior research engineer
at the Manufacturing Technology Centre in the UK, noted integration of robots and vision is still a key challenge for improving uptake of automation. He believes there are opportunities for vision companies to form closer relationships with robotics and other automation integrators. Te centre is compiling a list of integrators in the UK – it is up to 600 firms so far that sell or maintain industrial automation systems. ‘Tere’s a
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