A Clear Vision

Panel Discussion: What will the camera of the future look like?
Closing the first day of our virtual event inVISION Days Basler, B&R, Lucid Vision and Teledyne Lumenera joined Editor-in-Chief Dr.-Ing. Peter Ebert for a Panel Discussion regarding the day's main topic 'Cameras'. Together they pondered the question 'what will the camera of the future look like?'

How important will 3D cameras be in the future?

Waldl: I see a big potential for the use of 3D cameras in industrial applications. We are currently evaluating, how to best integrate this technology in our portfolio.

Wiesinger: For us the 3D market plays a significant role already. And looking at the market almost everyone offers some kind of 3D stereo vision or ToF camera. I think 3D won’t replace 2D cameras as the dominant part of the industry but it will continue to grow.

Longval: I think there is room for growth for 3D. We are just at the start of that and we are going to see more as the capabilities are improving. Just because it is so natural to us, we live in 3D and bringing these capabilities to machine viusion will be a key part in the future.

Böge: I agree completely. Sometimes it feels a bit like when we did the first steps in 2D: The cameras are bit clumsy, a little bit bigger, the cost is not quite where customers are expecting it. But I think we are now at a good point in the hype cycle around 3D where people begin to understand what they realistically can do with 3D and how it can be leveraged.

Which image sensor trends are we going to see in the future? Bigger sensors, smaller pixels, more speed?

Longval: We need all of the above. There are so many different applications for vision, one person needs higher speed, another needs higher resolution. Especially the resolution, who would have thought that we have 100+MP sensors just a few years back? But it’s not the end because there is real need for even higher resolution. But it’s not only the sensors, you have to think of the other components like the optics or the interface as well. Again, sensors are important but it’s about the solution as a whole.

Böge: I agree completely, it becomes more and more about a Multi-dimensional portfolio planning as well. Because customers are working on completely different tangents of the vision market spectrum. But in the end you have to serve them if you want to be a full service provider in machine vision. I’m convinced you can’t go for a part of that and will be fine. You have to have smart answers and a broad portfolio to serve all these customers. Because many of the different parts will be combined in a single solution. So the portfolio scaling is definitely one of the most important parts right now.

Wiesinger: Of course the trend of higher, faster, bigger will continue in all directions in the market. We all have seen it with the Sony sensors of the past few years. There is a high interest of getting more technologies like Polarization, HDR, SWIR or even some intelligence into the sensor. I think this can be the trend that a sensor is capable of doing much more different tasks than the standard visible light sensors.

What importance will new imaging modalities like polarization, hyperspectral, SWIR or UV have?

Waldl: For me, SWIR is more important than sensors with 100 MP and more. But we would like to have a wider wavelength range than is available today, and of course these will then be used for hyperspectral applications. However, these sensors will first have to become much cheaper to get into a price range that our customers are willing to pay for their high-volume applications.

Longval: Currently we are able to find a lot of use in multispectral instead of going full blown hyperspectral and can still achieve a lot of the same. In regard to UV we use a coating to achieve some level of UV capabilities in our cameras. So there is definitely a need for these technologies if they allow us to do it in a better way because the applications are there.

Wiesinger: The price is key. In our experience with polarization for example there are verygood applications under development, but most customers are still waiting for lower prices.So it’s still a niche market but I am confident, it will become more important. In the end it’s a question ofcreating the volume and getting the price down, which is happening already.

Böge: Yes, the business case is definitely the issue today. With SWIR I’m convinced that once the price comes down it will enter the mainstream market and have a huge impact there. In ascending order regarding the level of interest I’d say polarization, UV and then SWIR.

How can we ensure short and reliable delivery times for cameras in the future?

Böge: Honestly, if I see big car manufacturers parking their almost finished cars for months because there is one chip missing I don’t think that the machine vision industry will have a better solution to prevent that kind of impact. But I think what will be important is to invest in active supply chain management, second source strategies or obsolescence management. And I’m sure that in the future it will become more important to have a certain size in the market to get your stakes at the table from the suppliers.

Longval: I agree with that, I think in that case size does matter. But I would add that it also matters to manage your customers‘ expectations and then try to do your best to meet these expectations. (bfi)

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