The North American market for machine vision components and systems hit a record $2.87 billion in 2018, growing 9.2 percent over 2017, according to AIA, Advancing Vision + Imaging, a trade group. That marked the sixth straight record-setting year.
Application specific machine vision systems led the growth with $2 billion in sales, an increase of 7.8 percent over 2017. That was followed by smart cameras, with sales of $466 million, up 14.2 percent.
Machine vision components also set up records in 2018, generating $401 million, 11.7 percent higher than the year-ago figure. The increase was mainly driven by component camera sales, according to AIA, which is part of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“Vision technologies are becoming smarter and smaller to solve the increasingly complex challenges associated with emerging automation applications such as AI-driven bin picking, autonomous vehicles and advanced inspection technologies,” said Alex Shikany, vice president of AIA and business intelligence at A3. “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. We’re excited to see what new innovations are created in the months and years ahead to make this data collection even simpler and more intuitive.”
In other news, the Association for Advancing Automation reports that more than 20,000 people attended its Automate 2019 trade show in Chicago April 8-11 — an increase fo more than 25 percent from the 2017 show. The event featured 500 exhibitors.
The 2021 Automate show is scheduled for Detroit May 17-20 of that year.
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