Sales of machine vision components and systems that provide vision intelligence to robots were $2.874 billion in 2018, increasing 9.2 percent over 2017 and setting a new market record. However, this market bubble is showing signs of strain in the first quarter of 2019. Industry experts surveyed by the AIA predict that sales will remain the same or decrease over the next year.
Market experts expect the cessation of growth for machine vision to follow a general decline in the manufacturing sector. The United States manufacturing PMI, or Purchasing Manager’s Index, was 52.4 in March of 2019. This is on par with PMI values in July 2017 and is the average over a period of time where the PMI actually dropped below 50 (which indicates that there is no growth in the market.)
Growth of manufacturing for machine vision components may plateau, but intelligent machines will retain their sight. At Automate 2019 in Chicago, exhibitors will demonstrate robots that use 3D vision to solve real-world problems, including visually inspecting factory floor components for quality control.
“Vision components in everything from cameras to lighting to software must work together seamlessly to provide the visual intelligence that robots and other smart machines require to do their jobs,” says vice president of AIA and business analyst at A3, Alex Shikany.
As industry 4.0 advances, less robot vison components may be manufactured as robots begin to see more clearly. Check out this machine vision system that can track vibrations and the Python-powered camera developed for machine vision applications.