Report Overview
Robotic Automation Increases Industrial Productivity Cost Efficiently
Robotic automation provides large corporations with the flexibility to produce more than one item on a single production line, reducing downtime
and expenditures. It has definite cost, quality, and output advantages over manual processes even in countries where labor costs are low because the
levels of scrap and rework are significantly diminished. Technologies that include the use of artificial intelligence to reduce human supervision are
being currently developed. Robotics applications are expanding their boundaries of usage to include semiconductor, photonics, machine vision, fiber
optics, and precision assembly automation.
This Frost & Sullivan research examines the robotics and automation technology developments, applications, growth opportunities, and markets.
It covers key market and technology drivers and restraints, and shows how you can overcome market challenges.
Upgraded Methods Improve Reliability of Image Tracking
By determining the certainty of location of a feature rather than certainty of measurement, a quantitative evaluation of uncertainty can be
obtained to weigh feature measurements in proportion to their reliability. Earlier methods of image tracking inferred the 3D structure of an
environment from 2D data. These techniques treated every scanned feature equally and did not provide margins of errors for factors such as changes in
illumination, occlusion of features, or poor image contrast.
In the new system, developers scale the sum-of-squared-differences correlation surface and then fit a Gaussian distribution to the surface to
estimate values for a covariant matrix. "This approach can be used to deduce the directions in which the template is discriminating the feature
from the image background and have a quantitative measure of confidence in each direction," explains the analyst. With this procedure, it is
possible to assimilate useful information from both low and high confidence directions data.
Speech and Vision Capabilities for Robots to Enhance Man-Machine Communication
Specific sensors and cameras enable multimodal communication in robots to enhance interactions between machines and men. Since the roles of robots
are being expanded in several sectors, it is important for them to become more adept and responsive. Although speech and vision are not new functions,
developers have found a cheaper alternative to the sophisticated sound sensors in off-the-shelf sound cards. Robots can be programmed to make
decisions by interpreting the sounds they receive.
"Apart from sound localization, robots use vision to locate potential 'disaster victims'", observes the analyst. Manufacturers also
expect the robots to be employed for commercial purposes such as assistance on shop floors. With new technologies, robots will be able to distinguish
between products and people in spite of the background disturbances of a factory floor. This new class of robots will be more stable and compliant in
unstructured environments and can be controlled by human personnel from their workstations. | 
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