3D Imaging for Conveyor Applications

Conveyors of various types are commonly used in industrial production environments and logistics distribution centers. Vision products are often needed to perform tasks - such as quality assurance and localization, and/or shape measurements for sorting and picking - as items and materials move along the conveyors.

Using 3D vision in these applications enables more flexible and powerful solutions than using 2D vision or relying on mechanical solutions for manipulation and sorting.

Johannesson shows how to efficiently use laser triangulation systems for conveyors, and he discusses how these systems compare to other 3D imaging technologies, such as stereo and time of flight. Laser triangulation is a well-established, fast, robust, and accurate 3D imaging technology suited for imaging objects as they pass by on a conveyor.

3D laser triangulation systems measure profiles on well-known positions along the belt and track the conveyor's movements, making it easy to co-calibrate vision systems to rejection actuators or picking robots.

About the presenter
Mattias Johannesson, Ph.D., is a senior expert in 3D Vision within the research and development division at the German sensor company SICK. He has over 25 years of experience with 3D camera development, including first laser triangulation product in the Ranger family, which IVP (now part of SICK) released in 1993. 3D camera development was a major focus of Johannesson's studies at Linköping University, where, in 1995, he received his doctoral degree. He holds more than 10 patents in the machine vision field. Since 1998, Johannesson has worked at SICK IVP, previously in Sweden and the U.S., and now at the Innovation Center for Machine Vision in Linköping, Sweden.