Industrial PC Design for Machine Vision Automation and Inspection
Why Industrial PCs for Machine Vision?
USB interfaces and GPIO provide higher-speed data transfer.
Support for multi-core accelerators for inference analysis.
Support for wide temperature ranges in harsh factory environments.
Large solid-state storage capacity to store data in situ.
Up to 64GB of DDR4 SODIMM RAM for multitasking.
Support for the latest high-speed vision cameras (GigE and USB 3.0).
Modular PCIe expansion slots for high-performance GPU accelerators.
How Machine Vision Moves Towards Machine Learning?
Machine vision, also known as the eyes of machines, refers to the ability of computers to observe using one or more cameras. It captures images, processes them, and creates an action plan. Although these steps may sound time-consuming, they are completed at extremely fast speeds. The only time-consuming process is data collection, although this process has become faster with more advanced artificial intelligence. These machines combine hardware and software algorithms to handle complex visual tasks that the human eye cannot handle. Their most prominent configurations include sensors, software, and computational power (CPU and GPU) capable of analyzing images at high speeds. Compared to humans, the faster computational power and powerful real-time graphics accelerators in x86 processors allow industrial PC machines to provide faster and more accurate results. This is very relevant to the use cases of robot automation, as intelligent machines bring huge productivity and efficiency gains.
Technological advancements have led to the use of more efficient cameras and computers to replace the human eye, and businesses rely on more efficient industrial PCs for machine vision to improve quality and efficiency.
Several Key Features of Industrial PCs
- General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) Digital Signal Interface
Many high-precision applications require cameras to capture a frame at precise times. It is easy to capture images when an object moves at a slightly slower speed. However, simultaneously controlling multiple cameras to capture fast-moving objects will be more challenging.
To make it possible, industrial PCs generally come equipped with GPIO interfaces. Cameras can be connected via this interface, allowing programmable software control of device actions or trigger actions.
- Support for ×16 PCIe Gen3 GPUs for Real-Time Processing
Machine vision computers also use dedicated GPUs to process all input data. Some vision application workloads require higher power, while others have lower GPU utilization requirements, which helps reduce overall costs. However, it is important that many machine learning algorithms using vision rely on powerful performance accelerators such as GPUs for real-time parallel computing. Many robots and automation applications use and add industrial PCs with GPUs to help identify and grasp objects through vision.
- Temperature Expansion in Harsh Environments
When working with industrial PCs, attention should be paid to the heat dissipation generated by industrial PCs. Since GPUs generate a lot of heat, this is the biggest enemy of electrical components. General industrial PCs use aluminum heat sink chassis to enhance their reliability, achieve fast heat dissipation, and allow them to operate within a temperature range of -25°C to 60°C.
- PCIe ×4, ×8 Slots
Typically, industrial PCs come with data interfaces such as USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet ports to provide data connections and transmission with cameras. However, in addition to cameras with these two types of data interfaces, there are also cameras with Camera Link and CoaXPress interfaces. To meet all common data interface requirements, industrial PCs should be configured with PCIe ×4 or ×8 slots to provide additional USB 3.0, GigE, Camera Link, and CoaXPress interfaces for daily machine vision solutions and systems.
FALenses Technology specializes in providing machine vision core hardware. You can go to the official website of FALenses Technology at https://www.falenses.com/ for more information.