Ford Motor orders more vision-guided robotic systems

APRIL 11--Braintech Inc. (North Vancouver, BC, Canada; www.braintech.com) has received orders from Ford Motor Co. for two ABB/Braintech Vision Guided Robotics (VGR) systems. Each system comprises an ABB robot and a Braintech VGR software platform developed for the decking of "integrated air/fuel manifolds" on engine blocks.

The system features Braintech's patent-pending SC3D technology, which uses a single camera image to guide a robot to pick and assemble heavy engine parts. These systems are independent of an initial order of 19 systems being used for engine-head decking.