An increase in sales can be achieved by simplifying operation, service and maintenance. Ease-of-use not only increases acceptance by the end customer it also reduces the requirements of the end users in terms of the knowledge needed to run the system. The biggest challenge for real production integration lies in the simplification of robot vision – its setup, use and tuning – regardless of the user’s experience or skills. What are the important technological challenges facing the industry? Machine vision could potentially be applied for automated sorting based on specific requirements.
Shortage of raw materials mean there is a need for a better waste management. One reason might be related to the fact that the supposed complexity of these systems keeps many customers away from using the technology.Īn emerging market for machine vision might be the recycling industry. Even though machine vision is now a standard tool for specialists, it still seems like science fiction to many end users. A relatively large proportion of automation, especially in robotics, still does not integrate vision. Penetration of machine vision into most markets is still far from exhausted, apart from automotive and tier one suppliers. There is a wide range of markets, but growth will still come from vision exploiting current opportunities and markets better. What do you see as the major growth sectors? Fanuc uses this constant innovation in order to integrate new technologies into its robots. Japan’s industry and universities are dealing well with this challenge and the enormous development capacity is clearly reflected by the number and placement of Japanese manufacturers in the lead ranking of machine vision. The competitive pressure – including from European companies – and the need to manufacture at low cost, create a fast-paced development environment. This applies to machine vision solutions as well as their related components. Traditionally, Japanese companies are among the absolute top manufacturers of image processing components. As a Japanese company, what role does Japan have in the development of machine vision?
The in-house hardware developments of embedded sensors make it possible to provide hardware components for a fully robot-integrated vision system. The current Fanuc machine vision system is called iRVision and covers all mandatory functions for robot guidance (2D, 3D, 3D Laser, and 3D-Map). The close contact with Fanuc’s application engineers and end users meant that the company’s iRVision product was constantly being updated and improved.Ĭurrently Fanuc sells more than 2,500 robot-based vision systems worldwide a year. At this time Fanuc Europe had sold only a few robot vision systems a year, and my responsibilities were customer care, evaluation, and further development. I joined Fanuc in 2003 as a technical support engineer for its vision products. The extremely wide field of application for robot vision was evident and inspired me to work on this technology.
The opportunities that arise through the combination of robots and vision immediately fascinated me. As part of this work while integrating different components with very diverse requirements in systems, I also had exposure to machine vision and robotics. How did you come to be part of the machine vision industry?īefore I came to Fanuc, I was employed as a project manager and programmer for various mechanical engineering companies.