In the dark ages before the prevalence of LED lighting choices, shop floors had to rely on consumer lighting options, like fluorescent and incandescent bulbs, or later, through xenon bulbs concentrated through fiber optics, according to Bradley Weber, Datalogic’s application engineering leader and industry product specialist for manufacturing.

Thanks in large part to its ease of use, USB dominates consumer-to-computer connectivity applications and is being rapidly adopted across other markets. 

Nortech Systems Incorporated expanded capabilities at its manufacturing facility in Suzhou, Jiangsu, China, to support its regional machine vision technology customers.

Former Detroit Free Press Executive Editor Robert Huschka joins A3 as director of education strategies.

A wide range of single-purpose point sensors such as proximity sensors, lasers and photocells have long played a key role in virtually all factory automation systems by detecting the presence of parts or assemblies, performing measurements, and identifying colors.

Since its early days, machine vision has been primarily used to check the liquid level in a bottle, or verify if a packaging label is applied correctly.

For several years now the technologies used in machine vision have gotten more sophisticated, and at the same time the applications for quality checks are solved with a new ease. 

Lucid Vision Labs is a new company that designs and manufactures unique and innovative machine vision cameras.

Machine vision technologies for Vision Guided Robotics (VGR) have greatly enhanced the flexibility and capability of robots in many industrial applications, expanding the value of robots in markets ranging from automotive to food to pharmaceutical to warehousing/distribution/order fulfillment. 

The benefits of smart cameras have made them an ideal match for a manufacturing environment. Combining a camera, processor, software and communications in one small, low-power package, smart cameras are highly integrated optical inspection tools for controlling quality and increasing productivity—required tasks in manufacturing.