Expanding on its TwinCAT Vision software capabilities, Beckhoff Automation has added industrial cameras, lenses and lighting to bring image processing directly into the machine control environment. The new products were showcased at Pack Expo 2023 and included area scan cameras, C-mount lenses, multicolor LED illumination and complete vision units.
Todd Jarvey, U.S. vision product manager at Beckhoff, said, “By integrating vision into the TwinCAT software, we eliminate latency between vision inspection results and the rest of the machine control. It also gives us the ability to configure the camera and the lights in real time during the inspection process to easily change the wavelength light of the illumination and trigger the camera with very tight synchronization to motion axes.”
Beyond latency issues and accelerating reaction times, Beckhoff’s aim in delivering an integrated hardware and software approach to machine vision is to support a single development environment for machine control.
Key components of Beckhoff’s new camera, lenses and lighting include:
- IP65/67, EtherCAT-enabled area-scan cameras that generate high-quality image data via monochrome and color Sony CMOS sensors with up to 24-megapixel resolution and GigE Vision transfer rates of 2.5 Gbit/s.
- Industrial C-mount lenses feature a robust locking mechanism, VIS to NIR AR coating and up to 2 μm resolution. Lens models are available for camera formats of up to 1.2-in. (19.3 mm image circle).
- Like the cameras, the EtherCAT-enabled multicolor LED illumination products are also IP65/67 rated. The lighting is available in panel, ring and bar configurations for highly controlled illumination and consistently high-quality images.
- Complete machine vision units consisting of a camera, illumination and electronically focusable liquid lens are also available.
In the video below, Todd Jarvey of Beckhoff Automation explains the new cameras, lenses and lighting and demonstrates the technologies’ integration with TwinCAT HMI in a high-speed motion and image capturing example.
