JANUARY 19--ABB (www.abb.com), a global leader in power and automation technologies, and Braintech Inc. (www.braintech.com), a pioneer in vision-guided robotics (VGR) technologies, jointly announced the signing of a new, expanded strategic agreement providing for Braintech to grant ABB rights to its proprietary and patented VGR technologies. In 2004, Braintech awarded ABB rights to market eVisionFactory (eVF) to the automotive industry within North America.
eVF is a comprehensive software platform for developing, operating, and managing VGR solutions and is the key enabling software that powers ABB's TrueView robotic systems. Currently, TrueView is in operation or scheduled for installation in a number of manufacturing facilities operated by many North American automakers and auto-parts manufacturers.
As a result of achieving market acceptance for TrueView through 2004,the two companies plan to initiate a significant sales program starting the first quarter 2005. Accordingly, the agreement was amended allowing ABB to market TrueView, exclusively powered by Braintech technology, to the countries of the European Economic Union and sublicense TrueView to its business partners on a worldwide basis.
According to the Automated Imaging Association, the market for VGR materials handling and assembly (that is, software, robots, and integration) exceeds $2 billion per year on a global basis. Moreover, in 2000, the world machine-vision market was $6.2 billion--addressing just 10% of potential applications--with forecasted growth expected to exceed 20% per year through 2006.
