The first industrial machine vision systems date back to the beginning of the modern industrial robot age in the 1980s. Today, augmenting collaborative robots (or cobots) with vision enables them to achieve with higher precision, greater flexibility, and more intelligence. Integration is not a one-size-fits-all process however, since the specific requirements of each application can vary greatly.
Consider an electronics assembly line, for example. A cobot working on printed circuit board (PCB) assembly could use machine vision for two (or more) tasks with high precision requirements, such as locating the position of components on a PCB and inspecting the quality of solder joints post-assembly.