Factory Automation

Gearing Up

Every year, the show organizers at Messe Stuttgart hold a press conference to promote the world’s largest machine-vision exposition, VISION, which will be held November 3–5, 2009.
Aug. 1, 2009
3 min read

Every year, the show organizers at Messe Stuttgart hold a press conference to promote the world’s largest machine-vision exposition, VISION, which will be held November 3–5, 2009. Leading off last month’s press conference, Thomas Walter, director of the industrial solutions division of Messe Stuttgart, spoke of new incentives to attract visitors. These will include a three-day series of talks featuring more than 40 speakers, tutorial workshops to introduce engineers to machine-vision technology, a system integration area showing machine-vision systems in action, and an area devoted to automotive applications.

Thinking about the future, VISION will now include a youth research competition that will provide 17–20-year-old students an exhibition stand for their machine-vision projects. Moreover, innovative German startup companies will be provided 80% of the funds needed for an exhibition booth by the German government. Topping this off, the show organizers expect more than 6000 attendees to visit the 300 exhibitors—roughly the same as in 2008.

After Walter’s positive outlook, however, Dietmar Ley, chairman of the VDMA Machine Vision Group, brought a dose of reality by predicting that if the current business trend continues, turnover in the German machine-vision industry will probably fall in 2009 by 30%, to €854 million—the same level of 2003. The glimmer of hope in Ley’s presentation related to new opportunities for machine vision in areas outside of industrial production, specifically security, agriculture, biomedical fields, and traffic monitoring.

Winds of change

Some of the new applications covered in this issue as well as traditional applications of machine vision in manufacturing bode well for the machine-vision industry as global markets begin to recover from recession. For example, wind turbine power has been expanding at double-digit rates and has been identified in a recent study by the Automated Imaging Association as a growth opportunity for machine vision. In this issue, an article by contributing editor Charlie Masi describes how a thermography-based automated inspection system is being used to find cracks and delaminations in turbine blades and keep wind turbine power systems in operation.

Machine vision in traditional manufacturing continues to improve product quality as shown in an article by contributing editor Winn Hardin on automotive glass inspection. Another by editor Andy Wilson describes a robotic work cell for inspecting military protective eyewear. Finally, in this month’s Product Focus, Wilson describes how many innovative smart-camera vendors are making their products easier to use by leveraging embedded processors and on-board software.

Innovation remains the fundamental ingredient in successful machine-vision products and trade shows. This year, it will be on full display in Stuttgart, provided by students of machine vision, entrepreneurs, and well-established component vendors and system integrators.

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W. Conard Holton, Editor in Chief
[email protected]

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