The industrial revolution had its inception in the 18th century. The first industrial revolution was characterized by the shift from an agrarian and handicraft society to a more machine-oriented and urban economy. The second saw electricity dominate industries and households in the late 1800s and early 19th century, whereas the third revolution witnessed computers making automation faster and more efficient leveraging processing power and internet connectivity in the second half of the 20th century. Finally, the fourth industrial revolution – or Industry 4.0 – is all about making systems smart and autonomous by harnessing the power of machine learning, artificial intelligence, the internet of things (IoT), and edge computing to enable faster decision-making. And robots play a key role in creating a smart industrial environment leveraging these new advancements fueled by Industry 4.0.
Embedded vision contributes to transforming Industry 4.0 by empowering robots with cutting-edge vision-enabled functionalities. As per the World Robotics 2020 – Industrial Robots Report published by the IFR (International Federation of Robotics), 2.7 million robots were operating in factories worldwide in 2019. This was an 85% increase from 2014, which clearly indicates a rapidly growing market. The adoption of human-robot collaboration is on the rise too. As per the IFR report, installations of co-bots (collaborative robots) grew by 11% in 2019. Interestingly, embedded vision finds applications in traditional robots and collaborative robots.
In order to learn how robotic vision impacts Industry 4.0, it is first important to understand its applications and use cases in an industrial environment. This article aims to look at some of the most common industrial use cases of embedded vision in robotics. Read More>>
