Applications of visual sensors
The low cost and ease of use of vision sensors have attracted numerous machine designers and process engineers to integrate them into applications that previously relied on manual labor, multiple photoelectric sensors, or no inspection at all. Industrial applications of vision sensors include inspection, metrology, measurement, orientation, defect detection, and sorting. The following are just a few application examples:
The low cost and ease of use of vision sensors have attracted machine designers and process engineers to integrate them into a variety of applications that previously relied on manual labor, multiple photoelectric sensors, or no inspection at all. Industrial manufacturing applications of vision sensors include inspection, metrology, measurement, orientation, defect detection, and sorting. Below are some application examples:
In car assembly plants, the inspection checks whether the adhesive beads applied by robots to the door frames are continuous and of the correct width. In bottling plants, the checks verify whether the bottle caps seal correctly, whether the liquid level is correct, and whether any foreign objects have fallen into the bottle before sealing.
On the packaging production line, ensure that the correct packaging labels are affixed in the correct positions.
On the pharmaceutical packaging production line, the inspection team checks whether there are any damaged or missing tablets in the blister packs of aspirin tablets.
At a metal stamping company, stamped parts are inspected at a rate of over 150 pieces per minute, which is more than 13 times faster than manual inspection.
Visual sensor principle
Visual sensors possess thousands of points of resolution that capture light from an entire image. The sharpness and detail of an image are typically measured by resolution, expressed as a number of points of resolution. Some visual sensors offered by Banner Engineering can capture 1.3 million points of resolution. Therefore, regardless of whether the target is meters or centimeters away, the sensor can "see" a very detailed image of the target.
After capturing an image, the vision sensor compares it to a reference image stored in memory to perform analysis. For example, if the vision sensor is programmed to identify a machine part with eight bolts correctly inserted, it knows to reject a part with only seven bolts or a part with misaligned bolts. Furthermore, the vision sensor can make judgments regardless of the machine part's location within the field of view or whether the part has rotated within a 360-degree range.
Features of visual sensors
1. Extremely rich in information: It not only contains distance information of objects within the field of view, but also information such as the object's color, texture, depth, and shape.
2. Multi-task detection: Simultaneous detection of roads, vehicles, pedestrians, traffic signs, and traffic lights can be performed within the field of view.
3. Visual SLAM: It enables simultaneous localization and mapping using a camera.
4. Real-time acquisition of scene information: The information provided does not rely on prior knowledge, unlike GPS navigation which depends on map information, and has a strong ability to adapt to the environment.
5. Accelerate integration with artificial intelligence such as machine learning and deep learning
