The challenge for Zebra Technologies is obvious. Since acquiring Matrox in 2021 and merging in 2022, there’s still perhaps a job to do in educating the industry about the company’s new capabilities. “I still feel we are still introducing ourselves to machine vision in some ways,” says Tom Lambert, EMEA Machine Vision Marketing Lead. “Even here at VISION 2024, you still have some people who aren't aware of the full breadth of our portfolio. We still have all of the barcode scanners and the printers, but we now have machine-vision smart cameras with sophisticated, traditional rule-based machine visual software.
“We began by developing our own Smart Camera lineup, but following the Matrox Imaging acquisition we now have access to an extensive range of specialist hardware and sophisticated Machine Vision software tools . So this year’s show is really about the story of that journey,” he says. “When we acquired the Polish machine vision software company Adaptive Vision, it was doing some powerful work in deep learning and we've now built that into a lot of our new products.
“A couple of years ago, we released our deep learning-based OCR, which is also a development that came out of the Polish team, and that was a tool that would read out-of-the-box at a very high degree of accuracy with no training. You literally drag a box over your region of interest; define your average character height; click Go, and it works. Since then, we released the FS42 fixed reader with a neural processing unit inside, meaning it is optimised for high-speed AI-based algorithms like deep learning-based OCR.
“Here, at VISION 2024, we also have two examples of deep learning-based anomaly detection using the Aurora software suite. One of these is PC-based. That functionality will eventually come onto a smart camera, and that will be pretty powerful.
“Another area that we're really active in is 3D. At this show, we're unveiling a new entry to that series – the AltiZ 4200, an ultra high-resolution profile sensor, designed and optimised for electronics and semiconductor components. At our stand, we are running a demo using two cameras. We're stitching both of those profiles together into a single-point cloud to inspect electrical connectors. It’s impressive stuff and the first customer ship date is 25th November 2024.
“We also have the 3S series, a structured light sensor with models capable of inspecting stationary objects, as well as handling rotational movement.”
Gianbattista Gualeni, Application Engineer, Machine Vision & Industrial Scanning, explains how some of the equipment has been more than two years in development. “We are now seeing the systems run effectively at different speeds and we can see huge potential in a number of inspection settings,” he says. “The focus now is fixed on the user experience and we are still working on different interfaces.”
Tom highlighted the new software suite, Aurora, which offers flexibility across a wide variety of use cases and industries. The software enables users of all experience levels to solve their track-and-trace and vision inspection needs. Experienced users find how easy it is to develop, refine and customise jobs with code-level customisation, while others can take advantage of interactive, step-by-step guidance to develop powerful machine vision applications for a wide range of industries.“It means we've got huge flexibility with what we can do, especially if you want an intuitive, drag-and-drop based development interface,” he says.
Coming down the line are some exciting future AI and robotics developments. Donato Montanari, VP and General Manager of Machine Vision at Zebra Technologies, used the event to discuss the impact of cloud-based AI on machine vision.
It all adds up to a pretty impressive story in a short space of time. Zebra was founded in 1969, with Matrox forming in 1976. Since that merger two years ago, 2023 saw the release of the first deep-learning-based OCR tool and the launch of the CV60 series of machine-vision cameras. This year has seen the first fixed scanner optimised for AI applications – the FS42 – and, of course, the release of the 3S series and AltiZ 4200 3D products.
Sam Lopez, Senior Director/Sales VP, sums it up nicely: “We're obviously looking forward to a lot of new things. It's interesting how it is all now coming together. We're at a point now where we can confidently say, no matter what you're looking for and no matter what your application, we’ve probably got something for you: right through the low-level, entry-level or simple applications, all the way to very complex applications. A big focus for us now is going to be to move from component sales to solution sales.
“We'll put this in the hands of our system integrators and line builders and people who have the technical capabilities, but the tools themselves lend themselves very well to being able to put solutions or turnkey applications together quite easily.”
