UKIVA Machine Vision Conference
The first keynote presentation for the 2019 UKIVA Machine Vision Conference and Exhibition has been announced. With Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) gaining traction in the world of industrial vision, UKIVA is delighted to welcome Dr Luca Benedetti from Kudan, whose keynote is entitled: ‘Visual SLAM in the wild’. Benedetti will describe the real-world challenges of deploying a SLAM system across a variety of applications, as well as designing a SLAM system that’s versatile both in terms of hardware and software.
A second keynote address is to be given by by Minh-Tri Pham from Winnow, entitled: ‘Sustainability in the food industry: AI Vision tools reduce food waste at IKEA’.
Kudan (www.kudan.io) is a pioneer in the field of artificial perception technology. While artificial intelligence is becoming the brain for machines, it only consists of functionality for learning semantic extraction. Kudan is accelerating the evolution of virtuality (AR/MR/VR) and robotics (automobile/drone/robot) by developing computer software algorithms classified as artificial perception (AP). Kudan’s AP algorithms are the machine equivalent of human eyes. With the combination of AP and AI, machines are getting closer to sensing and interacting with the world like humans, using both eyes and brain.
Kudan has been developing SLAM algorithms that can be deployed on a variety of different products that use different sensors, such as drones, robots, vehicles, and mobile devices. SLAM refers to the process of determining the position and orientation (localisation) of a sensor with respect to its surroundings, as well as simultaneously building a map of the surrounding environment. Over the years, various SLAM algorithms have been developed to solve this problem (at least approximately), which typically use either a combination of a camera and a depth sensor, or two cameras together (stereovision) embedded on the device. Most modern SLAM systems used today are based on vision, thanks to the inherent richness of the image data.
Vision in robotics has been added to the conference programme as a seminar theme. This reflects the opportunities for robots, cobots and vision as part of Industry 4.0, especially as communication standards such as the OPC UA companion specifications for robotics and machine vision are now emerging. To complement the vision in robotics theme, experts from our sister organisation, the British Automation and Robot Association (BARA), will be available throughout the day. They will be happy to discuss all aspects of integrating robots and vision to improve the automation of processes. These specialists can be found on the BARA stand, which will feature a working robot cell, put together for the event by specialists at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC). After the event, the robot cell will be put on permanent display at MTC’s headquarters in Ansty Park, Coventry, UK.