INDUSTRY
INSIDER AUGUST 2012 Slowdown Predicted in Machine Vision Market A recent report estimates that the world market for machine vision was worth nearly $2.9 billion in 2011. According to the just-published world machine vision report from IMS Research, revenues grew more than 10 percent in 2011. The report goes on to explain the reasons why this level of growth is unlikely to be sustained during the forecast to 2016. “The main reason for the restricted growth of this industry is considered to be instability in many economies around the world, particularly those countries that have adopted the Euro,” commented author John Morse. Morse continued: “The machine viWorld Market for Machine Vision sion industry recovered well after the last Percentage growth rates 2011 - 2016 recession as shown by the results of IMS Annual Percentage Growth on Previous Year Research’s free quarterly market tracker. 12% However, revenue growth showed signs of slowing in the second half of 2011. 10% Many manufacturers expressed caution 8% about growth in 2012 and beyond.” The views of manufacturers 6% echoed the findings of other recent 4% IMS Research reports that present 2% lower revenue forecasts than in previous editions. Generally, growth over 0% 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 the next five years will be less than previously forecast. Source: IMS Research June-12 “It is not all bad news,” added IMS Research estimates a fall in growth between 2010 and 2011 and forecasts a Morse. “Despite manufacturing estimodest recovery from 2012 to 2016 mated to account for more than 80 percent of machine vision revenues, there is a trend toward machine vision products being used outside the manufacturing environment. For example: high-quality security and surveillance, traffic monitoring, and control and medical.” Machine vision manufacturers have always proven themselves to be very resourceful and this continues with new developments frequently being announced. These include new types of camera and communication technology, which are necessary to meet customers’ requirements for more information to be captured and transmitted at faster speeds. This commitment to continuous development is likely to ensure long-term prosperity for the machine vision market and keep it ahead of the game, particularly during times of economic uncertainty.
Czech Republic Aims to be Home of Robotics and WideRanging Research
In 1920, Czech writer Karel Čapek introduced the word “robot” to the world. His play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) was a work of science fiction, but robots, albeit very different from how Čapek imagined them, are rapidly becoming a reality today. Their development is being helped by groundbreaking research taking place in the Czech Republic. The Czech Technical University (CTU) in Prague, the oldest institute of technology in Central Europe, aims to stand at the fore-
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AUGUST 2012 RTC MAGAZINE
front of robotics research. Teams there are working on a range of technologies that promise great advances in robotic devices, applications and human-robot interaction. In the NIFTI project, researchers from CTU are looking at how robots can most effectively cooperate with humans to perform different tasks with a focus on search and rescue operations. The goal is to develop a cognitive robot that is not only aware of its own capabilities and situation, but also can adapt its behavior depending on the people it is interacting with. The vision is to one day have human-robot teams working to-
gether after a disaster to assess the situation and locate victims, with robots performing tasks that may be too dangerous for a human. In such a scenario, how would robots and humans interact and communicate? That question is being answered in another project involving a team from CTU. In Humavips, researchers are developing robots with auditory and visual capabilities that are able to explore a new environment, recognize people and interact with them in a natural way. Using multimodal perception, a Humavips robot should be able to enter a room full of people,
identify which voice is coming from whom, select a person to talk to, synthesize human-like behavior and engage in communications. In essence, the robot will have “social skills”—a crucial factor in making human-robot interaction natural and effective in any environment. Sometimes, however, there may be a need for robots that do not act like humans. They might, for example, behave more like insects. That is the goal of Replicator, a five-year project involving a team from CTU and researchers from the Czech Institute of Microelectronic Applications, as well as partners in five other European countries. Together with a sister project, Symbrion, the researchers are developing “swarm bots”— hoards of tiny bio-inspired autonomous robots able to combine and configure themselves to perform different tasks. Much as termites, ants or bees forage collaboratively for food, build nests and cooperate for the greater good of the colony, swarming robots could collaboratively work in hazardous environments, perform surgery or even explore the surface of Mars. Among other challenges being addressed in Replicator, the researchers are working on miniature power sources, sensing technology, selfprogramming and self-configuration features and making the robots as robust as possible.
Elliptic Technologies Joins ARM TrustZone Ready Program
Elliptic Technologies, a supplier of content protection software and security semiconductor IP, has joined the ARM TrustZone Ready Program to provide system wide embedded security based on Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) to mobile and home entertainment devices. As a partner of this program, Elliptic will join