Automatic inspection by machine vision is leading to the dawn of the “smart factory,” eliminating errors resulting from human manual operations, improving quality consistency, increasing productivity, reducing production costs, and enhancing customer satisfaction. With consideration for limited floor space and budgeting for installation, small, compact, integrated, easily installed vision systems are drawing more interest from operators who are looking for a competitive advantage, and these systems have seen annual sales growth of 30% in recent years.
The most significant trend in machine vision today is probably the transition from CCD to CMOS image sensors, which has a number of intrinsic benefits.