How to Conquer Modern Machine Vision Lights Challenges

Businesses of all types today rely on industrial automation technologies more than ever before to meet customer needs. But amid an ongoing labor shortage and an increasingly competitive landscape, these automation systems must continuously evolve to meet industry demands. This means that components such as machine vision cameras, lighting and lenses must not only advance in terms of capabilities, but also become more cost-effective, more easily deployed and overall, more flexible.

This presentation will look at some applications that have traditionally presented challenges in machine vision, including high-speed imaging, multispectral and hyperspectral imaging, imaging in tight spaces or harsh environments, inspecting parts or products with little feature contrast or texture, and selecting the right illumination system for your application. It will dive into some of the legacy approaches used for such applications and how the vendor community has responded to bring these applications into the future. The presentation will also describe how system integrators and OEMs today can get more from their lighting products, and how advances in lighting have helped expand the machine vision toolkit and how they can drive productivity and throughout improvements across a range of industries.

About the presenter
Steve Kinney is a machine vision expert who joined Pulnix America and entered the machine vision industry in 1998. Going on to work for Basler, JAI, CCS, and now Smart Vision Lights, he has many years of machine vision and imaging experience and has become an expert in industrial cameras and imagers. Since starting work in the machine vision lighting sector in early 2015, he now combines camera expertise with machine vision lighting to bring an expanded knowledge base to the market.

Kinney has additionally been an active A3 member and a current member of the A3 Board of Directors and vice chair of the Vision & Imaging Technology Strategy Board. He has been a past chairman of the AIA’s Camera Link Committee for a 20-year span, beginning with its inception in 1999. As chair of one of the major standards committees, he has also been a participant in the G3’s Future Standards Forum.

Kinney has also been a major material contributor and instructor for the A3 Certified Vision Professional (CVP) program in both the Basic and Advanced CVP Camera + Image Sensor Technology courses. He currently is the director of training, compliance and technical solutions for Smart Vision Lights in Muskegon, MI.