Industry 4.0 promotes machine vision industry upgrade

Machine vision uses the machine vision product to convert the captured target into an image signal, transfer it to the image processing system, and then use the artificial intelligence software system to analyze and process the data. With the wave of Industry 4.0, machine vision will get rid of the original "assistance tool" status and become the "eye" and "brain" of the production system.

Industry 4.0 Smart Factory Lab

FTP ISFTP4.0 “Industry 4.0-Smart Factory Lab” equipment developed

Rising demand for machine vision

Machine vision uses machine vision products to convert the captured object into an image signal and transfer it to a dedicated image processing system to obtain the morphological information of the captured object, and then convert it into a digital signal according to the distribution of pixels, brightness, and color reflected by it. The artificial intelligence software system is used to analyze and process the data, and finally infer the required information from it and make the next analysis decision.

The rise of factory automation has driven up the demand for machine vision equipment. Machine vision has a wide range of industrial applications, including robot hand-eye correction, visual inspection, positioning prediction, human-machine interaction, etc. Among them, visual inspection and integrated applications with robot controllers are the bulk.

The key elements of machine vision system are robot, vision sensor, robot control software / program / algorithm, visual operation software / program / algorithm. Most visual sensors are still in the 2D era and will gradually be replaced in the future. By subdividing the functions of machine vision inspection on the production line, such as object pick-up, dead reckoning, etc., it can be found that the functions that 3D vision inspection can achieve are becoming more and more comprehensive; in other words, the demand for 3D vision inspection in the robot market is rapidly increasing rising.

Market size is expected to reach 3 billion

Machine vision started in the 1980s with the introduction of technology. The semiconductor and electronics industries were one of the earlier application industries, such as PCB printing, circuit assembly, component manufacturing, and semiconductor equipment. Before 2006, the application of machine vision products in China was mainly concentrated in foreign-funded manufacturing enterprises, export processing enterprises and tobacco companies, with a small scale.

After all these years of development, China has become one of the regions where machine vision development is more active. The general application in the industrial field is just over ten years. At present, the industry is in a period of rapid development and there is a lot of room for development. The specific performance is that the industry's market capacity is growing rapidly, the application field is gradually expanding, and the number of employed enterprises is also increasing rapidly. In 2014, five major application industries such as electronics manufacturing, automotive, pharmaceutical, food and packaging machinery, and printing machinery accounted for 70% -80% of the market.

From the perspective of market scale, China's machine vision industry has entered a period of rapid growth since 2008, especially in 2010, it increased by 48.2% year-on-year, reaching 830 million yuan, and exceeded 1 billion yuan in 2011. It is expected that with the deepening of automation and intelligence in various industries, the machine vision market will continue to grow at a growth rate of nearly 16% in the next five years, reaching a market capacity of about 3 billion yuan in 2018.