Carl Zeiss Industrial Metrology (Oberkochen, Germany) has strengthened its presence in the car body inspection market by acquiring HGV Vosseler (Öhringen, Germany) and forming a new company -- Carl Zeiss Machine Vision.
HGV Vosseler is one of the world's three leading companies that manufacture 3-D inline measuring systems that are mounted on robots primarily for car body inspection directly on the production line in the automotive industry.
Dr. Kai-Udo Modrich will be responsible for the new company which employs around 60 individuals in Öhringen.
The industrial metrology business group of Carl Zeiss manufactures metrology solutions that include co-ordinate measuring machines and metrology software for the automotive, aircraft, mechanical engineering and plastics industries.
Around 2,100 employees work for the company, generating revenues totaling 394m Euros in fiscal year 2010/2011. Headquartered in Oberkochen, it operates manufacturing sites in Germany, the USA, China and India.
Recent articles on automotive vision systems from Vision Systems Design.
1. System sorts nuts for the automotive industry
Engineers at Avinashilingam University (Coimbatore, India) have developed a prototype machine vision system to sort nuts used in the automotive industry.
2. Vision system checks the identity of pistons
Engineers at Olmec-UK (Barton-Upon-Humber, UK) have developed an automatic vision inspection system for an automotive engine manufacturer that can read the alphanumeric product identifiers cast into pistons.
3. Smart headlight could improve visibility for drivers
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) have developed a novel system that is capable of reactively deactivating the rays of light from a headlight.
-- Dave Wilson, Senior Editor, Vision Systems Design
