Machine-vision equipment is monitored in the cloud
Engineers at Impact Vision Technologies (Maricopa, AZ, USA) are preparing to roll out a system that will allow the company -- and/or its customers -- to remotely monitor the performance of their industrial vision systems.
In the past, doing so has proved problematic due to the fact that many companies have been reluctant to allow third parties access to their enterprise networks.
Impact Vision Technologies now claims to have solved this issue by creating what it calls a “Machine Vision Cloud (MVC)” that operates independently of a customer’s IT system.
The MVC itself consists of a PPT Vision (Minneapolis, MN, USA) M40 Intel-based embedded vision processor that runs a proprietary SNMP software stack, and a separate hardware firewall.
The software creates a tunnel through the enterprise network, allowing Impact Vision Technologies to monitor the performance of the vision system, perform diagnostics, change inspection criteria, and perform maintenance using PPT’s Vision Program Manager (VPM) software interface.
Cris Holmes, president of Impact Vision Technologies, said that the system is currently undergoing beta testing at a packing plant in Arizona. Once testing is complete, the company expects that the system will be made available to the market as a PPT branded product.
-- By Dave Wilson, Senior Editor, Vision Systems Design