Machine vision joins machine learning in a set of tools that gives consumer- and commercial-level hardware unprecedented abilities to observe and interpret their environment. In an industrial setting, these technologies, plus automation and higher-speed networking, add up to a new industrial revolution Industry 4.0. They also offer brand-new ways to conduct low-waste, high-efficiency industrial activities.
- Advertisement -
Machine vision affects manufacturing, drilling, and mining. Further benefits are found in freight and supply chain management, quality assurance, material handling, security, and many different other processes and verticals.
Machine vision is going to be every-where before long, adding a critical layer of intelligence to the Internet of Things buildouts in the industrial world. Heres a glance at how businesses are already putting it to work.
- Advertisement -
Machine vision is a set of technologies that gives machines greater understanding of their environments. It facilitates higher-order image recognition and decision-making predicated on that awareness.
To take advantage of machine vision, a bit of industrial equipment uses high-fidelity cameras to capture digital images of the environment, or even a workpiece. The images could be taken in an automated guided vehicle (AGV) or a robotic inspection station. From there, machine vision uses excessively sophisticated pattern recognition algorithms to produce a judgment about its position, identity, or condition.
Several lighting sources are typical in machine vision applications, including Light emitting diodes, quartz halogen, metal halide, xenon, and traditional fluorescent lighting. If part of a barcode or workpiece is shadowed, the reading may deliver one when there isnt one, or vice versa.
Machine vision combines sophisticated hardware and software to allow machines to observe and react to outside stimuli in new and beneficial ways.
The proliferation of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices marks an important moment in technological advancement. IIoT gives organizations unprecedented visibility of their operations from top to bottom. Networked sensors and cloud-based enterprise and resource planning hubs provide two-way data mobility between local and remote assets, as well as business partners.
The two-way mobility could be something no more than a mechanical piston or bearing. It can also be as large as a fleet of trucks, can yield valuable operational data with the right IoT hardware and software. Businesses can have their eyes every-where, even when theyre strapped for resources or labor.
Where does machine vision squeeze into all this? Machine vision makes existing IoT assets a lot more powerful and better able to deliver value and efficiency. We can expect it to create some brand-new opportunities.
Machine vision makes sensors through the entire IoT a lot more powerful and useful. Instead of providing raw data, sensors deliver a level of interpretation and abstraction you can use in decision-making or further automation.
Machine vision may help decrease the bandwidth requirements of large-scale IoT buildouts. Compared with capturing pictures and data at the origin and sending it to servers for analysis, machine vision on average performs its research at the source of the data. Modern industry generates millions of data points, but a great deal of it could yield actionable insights without requiring transmission to another location, thanks to machine vision and edge computing.
Machine vision complements IoT automation technologies extremely well. Robotic inspection stations can work faster and accurately than human QA employees, and they immediately surface relevant data for decision-makers when defects and exceptions are detected.
Guidance systems designed with machine vision give robots and cobots greater autonomy and pathfinding abilities, and help them work faster and more safely along side human workers. In warehouses and other settings with a high danger of error, machine vision helps robotic order pickers improve response time and limit fulfillment defects that bring about lost business.
Todays and tomorrows economy requires companies and industries that operate while wasting much less time, material, and labor. Machine vision will keep on to make drones, material handling equipment, unmanned vehicles and pallet trucks, manufacturing lines, and inspection stations better able to exchange detailed and valuable data with all of those other network.
In a factory setting, it means machines and people working in better harmony with fewer bottlenecks, overruns, and other disruptions.
When you consider each of the steps involved in a normal industrial process, its easy to see each point where machine vision can improve operations.
To manufacture just one automotive part, humans and machines collaborate to source raw materials, appraise their quality, transport them to a plant for processing, and move those items through the facility at each manufacturing stage. Ultimately, they view it successfully through the QA process and then out the door again, where one or more last leg of its journey awaits. At some later time, the retailer or end-user receives it.
Whether this product is at rest, in transit, or not really assembled yet, machine vision provides a way to automate the handling of it. It improves efficiency in most department, such as for instance assembly, and maintains higher and more consistent quality levels.
Some applications are as simple as placing a line on a warehouse floor for an unmanned vehicle to follow safely. Other machine vision tools are a lot more sophisticated, even though even the best examples could be game-changers.
Some of the very exciting samples of machine vision in the industrial world involve tasks once thought difficult or impossible to outsource to robots. As mentioned, picking from bins in warehouses is an activity thats inherently risky as it pertains to errors. Mistakes in fulfillment cost goodwill and customers.
There happen to be nearly 100% autonomous order-picking robots on the market, which can navigate safely, inspect parts and products in the bin, make the proper pick employing a manipulator arm, and transport the pick to a staging or packaging area.
Ultimately, this means businesses are at a far lesser risk of shipping damaged goods or incorrect SKUs that look similar to, but dont quite match, usually the one the customer ordered.
In some modern manufacturing settings, it will also help employers automate and improve results from the QA process, even without sacrificing human jobs. Instead, automated inspection stations tackle this high-priority work while employees learn more cognitively demanding skills.
Cobots will likely achieve a 34% share of most robotics sales by 2025. This is due in large part to improvements in machine vision and the drive to expel as much inefficiency, inaccuracy, and waste from the modern industry as possible.
Expect machine vision to keep on to evolve in the coming years and contribute further to Industry 4.0, which many call the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Eyes are already trained on newer, lower-cost products and services featuring embedded and board-level image processing with machine vision capabilities.
Machine vision capabilities will lead to a lot more widespread adoption of the IoT and machine eyesight and innovative ways for businesses to capitalize upon digital brains.
Featured Image Credit: HAHN Group, CLOSED CIRCUIT BY-SA
Megan Ray Nichols is a contract technical article writer and tumblr. She likes writing simple to know science and technology content articles on her weblog, Schooled By Science. When she is not writing, Megan enjoys observing movies and hiking along with friends.
Read the original:
Machine Vision is Key to Industry 4.0 and IoT - Digital Market News
- 001 Stem Cells improve or reverse problems associated with Blindness, Eye Sight and Vision [Last Updated On: June 25th, 2010] [Originally Added On: June 25th, 2010]
- 002 Burn Victim Eye Sight Restored with Stem Cell Therapy [Last Updated On: June 29th, 2010] [Originally Added On: June 29th, 2010]
- 003 Advanced Cell Technology Announces Approval of Wills Eye Institute as Additional Site for Stem Cell Clinical Trial for ... [Last Updated On: February 16th, 2012] [Originally Added On: February 16th, 2012]
- 004 New Research Characterizes Glaucoma as a Neurologic Disorder Rather Than an Eye Disease [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2012] [Originally Added On: March 7th, 2012]
- 005 Human stem cells 'help blind rat' [Last Updated On: March 8th, 2012] [Originally Added On: March 8th, 2012]
- 006 New research characterizes glaucoma as neurologic disorder rather than eye disease [Last Updated On: March 8th, 2012] [Originally Added On: March 8th, 2012]
- 007 Glaucoma: A Neurological Disorder? [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2012] [Originally Added On: March 14th, 2012]
- 008 Mum tells of delight at pioneering eye operation which has helped restore her sight [Last Updated On: May 23rd, 2012] [Originally Added On: May 23rd, 2012]
- 009 6 Tips for Eye Health and Maintaining Good Eyesight [Last Updated On: May 19th, 2015] [Originally Added On: May 19th, 2015]
- 010 Blurry Eye Vision Blurred Vision, and Cures for Blurry ... [Last Updated On: May 19th, 2015] [Originally Added On: May 19th, 2015]
- 011 All About Eyes | "Your Sight is My Vision" [Last Updated On: May 21st, 2015] [Originally Added On: May 21st, 2015]
- 012 Autism Spectrum Disorders, Vision, and Eyesight - Autistic ... [Last Updated On: May 24th, 2015] [Originally Added On: May 24th, 2015]
- 013 Visual perception - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: June 1st, 2015] [Originally Added On: June 1st, 2015]
- 014 Human eye - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: June 5th, 2015] [Originally Added On: June 5th, 2015]
- 015 Color vision - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: June 8th, 2015] [Originally Added On: June 8th, 2015]
- 016 How is your vision after Cataract Surgery? - Eye Care ... [Last Updated On: June 8th, 2015] [Originally Added On: June 8th, 2015]
- 017 Eye Conditions & Treatments | Eye Site Vision Center ... [Last Updated On: June 28th, 2015] [Originally Added On: June 28th, 2015]
- 018 eye conditions - All About Vision [Last Updated On: July 2nd, 2015] [Originally Added On: July 2nd, 2015]
- 019 Eye Health Center - WebMD [Last Updated On: July 9th, 2015] [Originally Added On: July 9th, 2015]
- 020 CDC - About Vision Health - Common Eye Disorders - Vision ... [Last Updated On: July 9th, 2015] [Originally Added On: July 9th, 2015]
- 021 Craft & Vision [Last Updated On: July 18th, 2015] [Originally Added On: July 18th, 2015]
- 022 VISION 2020 | International Agency for the Prevention of ... [Last Updated On: July 18th, 2015] [Originally Added On: July 18th, 2015]
- 023 Subaru EyeSight: Driver Assist Technology [Last Updated On: August 1st, 2015] [Originally Added On: August 1st, 2015]
- 024 Eye - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: August 14th, 2015] [Originally Added On: August 14th, 2015]
- 025 Information on eyesight and vision: myths and facts at ... [Last Updated On: September 19th, 2015] [Originally Added On: September 19th, 2015]
- 026 Childrens vision and eye exams - Center For Sight [Last Updated On: September 25th, 2015] [Originally Added On: September 25th, 2015]
- 027 Eye care professional - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: September 25th, 2015] [Originally Added On: September 25th, 2015]
- 028 Lasik Eye Surgery - Get Your Best Vision at LA Sight [Last Updated On: September 25th, 2015] [Originally Added On: September 25th, 2015]
- 029 Eye Exercises Improve Vision Eyesight [Last Updated On: September 25th, 2015] [Originally Added On: September 25th, 2015]
- 030 Sight (Vision) - University of Washington [Last Updated On: September 25th, 2015] [Originally Added On: September 25th, 2015]
- 031 Second Sight Argus II Eye Prosthesis Brings Central Vision ... [Last Updated On: September 28th, 2015] [Originally Added On: September 28th, 2015]
- 032 Neuroscience for Kids - The Eye and Its Connections [Last Updated On: October 5th, 2015] [Originally Added On: October 5th, 2015]
- 033 Laser Eye Treatment Center - Centre For Sight [Last Updated On: October 23rd, 2015] [Originally Added On: October 23rd, 2015]
- 034 Eye Exam - Sight and Eye Exam - Vision and Eye Health ... [Last Updated On: October 26th, 2015] [Originally Added On: October 26th, 2015]
- 035 Driving eyesight rules - GOV.UK [Last Updated On: October 27th, 2015] [Originally Added On: October 27th, 2015]
- 036 Eye & Vision Problems - American Optometric Association [Last Updated On: October 27th, 2015] [Originally Added On: October 27th, 2015]
- 037 Lasik eye surgery - Centre For Sight [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 038 Dry Eye and Dry Eye Syndrome - Center for Sight in ... [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 039 Common vision problems | National Eye Institute [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 040 Computer Vision Syndrome | Eye Treatment - Centre For Sight [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 041 Eight Ways to Protect Your Eyesight - AllAboutVision.com [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 042 Facts About Diabetic Eye Disease | National Eye Institute [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 043 Vision Therapy: Can We Train Our Sight (Vanderbilt.edu) [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 044 Refractive Errors and Refraction - How the Eye Sees [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 045 Types of Vision Problems - Department of Health [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 046 Eyesight and vision - About-Vision.com [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 047 Eye Can Learn | Eye Exercises for Visual Health and School ... [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 048 Low Vision and Legal Blindness Terms and Descriptions ... [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 049 Eyesight NH - Cataract Surgery Portsmouth NH | LASIK Eye ... [Last Updated On: August 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 4th, 2016]
- 050 Ophthalmologist Zeeland, MI | Sight Eye Clinic [Last Updated On: August 22nd, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 22nd, 2016]
- 051 Fox Eye Care Group - Eye Doctor Winston Salem, High Point [Last Updated On: September 19th, 2016] [Originally Added On: September 19th, 2016]
- 052 Eye Test - The Eye Chart and 20/20 Vision Explained [Last Updated On: September 23rd, 2016] [Originally Added On: September 23rd, 2016]
- 053 How Light Works | HowStuffWorks [Last Updated On: October 16th, 2016] [Originally Added On: October 16th, 2016]
- 054 Sight $avers Family Eye Care - Optometry In Richmond, KY ... [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2016]
- 055 Fibromyalgia and Your Eye Sight - Fibromyalgia-Symptoms.org [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2016]
- 056 All About Vision - Humanitarian Eye Care Organizations [Last Updated On: November 27th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 27th, 2016]
- 057 Visual perception - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: November 27th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 27th, 2016]
- 058 Vision and Eye News - AllAboutVision.com [Last Updated On: November 27th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 27th, 2016]
- 059 Test your vision [Last Updated On: November 29th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 29th, 2016]
- 060 20/20 Vision: Is It Perfect Eyesight? - AllAboutVision.com [Last Updated On: November 29th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 29th, 2016]
- 061 Human eye - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: December 24th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 24th, 2016]
- 062 Monday Close-Up: Finding her way - Daily Herald [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- 063 Blind mom regains sight after church visit - whnt.com [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- 064 Love at first sight - win Free Laser Eye Surgery for you or your partner - Belfast Live [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- 065 Blind woman's sight restored - St. Charbel's relic brings slew of miraculous healings - Catholic Online [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- 066 Finding her way Student excels in goalball, life despite visual impairment - Daily Herald [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- 067 Maintaining Good Eye Health: What Causes Cataracts And 3 Ways To Prevent Cloudy Vision - Medical Daily [Last Updated On: February 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 8th, 2017]
- 068 Eyesight to the Blind - Business Jet Traveler [Last Updated On: February 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 8th, 2017]
- 069 Barely Visible Device Can Save Your Eyesight - NBC4 Washington [Last Updated On: February 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 8th, 2017]
- 070 Out of sight, out of mind: 61 million Americans are at risk for serious eye trouble and they don't even know it - Rare.us [Last Updated On: February 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 8th, 2017]
- 071 EYESIGHT WARNING: Kids risk eye damage 'by spending too much time indoors' - Express.co.uk [Last Updated On: February 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 8th, 2017]
- 072 The Inspiring VIsion Behind Ridin' for Cash Bull Bash - Big Country Homepage [Last Updated On: February 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 8th, 2017]
- 073 Lions club provides free eye screenings for elementary, middle school students - The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration) [Last Updated On: February 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 14th, 2017]
- 074 10 ways to keep your eyes healthy - Irish Independent [Last Updated On: February 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 14th, 2017]
- 075 Douglas Anderson: My invention saved my son's eyesight - Express.co.uk [Last Updated On: February 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 14th, 2017]
- 076 The Story Of Ajay Kumar Reddy - From Losing His Vision As A Child To Leading India To The Blind World T20 Title - Indiatimes.com [Last Updated On: February 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 14th, 2017]
- 077 Stanford researchers personalize virtual reality displays to match a user's eyesight - Stanford University News [Last Updated On: February 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 14th, 2017]
- 078 Storm's journey to regain his eyesight - South Coast Sun [Last Updated On: February 19th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 19th, 2017]
- 079 North Central Sight Services celebrates diamond anniversary - Williamsport Sun-Gazette [Last Updated On: February 19th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 19th, 2017]
- 080 Eying vision changes and problems related to aging - Burlington County Times [Last Updated On: February 19th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 19th, 2017]