Braintech lands machine-vision software contract from Toyota

JUNE 21--Braintech (North Vancouver, BC, Canada; www.braintech.com) guided robotic (VGR) software division has received an order for its eVF software from robotics producer ABB for use in the Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia plant. eVF, an integral part of ABB's new TrueView product line, helps robots "see" what they're doing, which greatly improves and extends a robot's capabilities. For this order, TrueView systems will fully automate the transfer of completed engines from the final assembly line to the engine testing line.

A TrueView system will determine the location of the engine prior to picking it up, as well as the location of the pallet on which it is to be placed. It will also process an image of the engine as it resides in the robot gripper, to ensure a successful and accurate pick by the robot.

Bob Welch, Toyota assistant manager of production engineering, emphasizes that "the beauty of the ABB solution is that it is 3-D vision with one camera, so the complexity to the user is minimal, and you don't have a two-camera system that you're trying to keep calibrated. In addition to TrueView's low maintenance, automating this cell also addresses ergonomic and safety concerns inherent in handling objects of significant weight and proportion."