With the improvement of supporting infrastructure and the accumulation of technology and capital in China, the demand for industrial automation and intelligence using machine vision technology in various industries has been widely improved. Yiou think tank and Alibaba Cloud Accelerator jointly released and analyzed the current relatively mature and promising industrial subdivision track, and combined with technical pain points to gain insight into the future application trend.

Machine vision is a rapidly developing branch of artificial intelligence, which uses machines to measure and judge instead of human eyes, and automatically receives and processes images of real objects through optical devices and non-contact sensors to obtain needed information or devices for controlling robot motion. The core of industrial machine vision is to identify, measure and judge objects by replacing human eyes with "machine eyes".

There are four stages in the development of machine vision: the initial stage of theory development, the rapid development of application, the synchronous development of application and theory, and the deep application of various industries. At present, China is in the fourth stage.

Four applications of industrial machine vision

According to the research results of Yiou think tank, with the rapid development of the depth and breadth of application in the industry, the four major tracks worthy of attention in the field of industrial machine vision applications are 3C electronics, semiconductors, lithium batteries and photovoltaics.

Track 1: As the benchmark of industrial vision industry, 3C industry still has technical difficulties to overcome at this stage.

At present, the global 3C electronics industry is shifting to developing countries. With the characteristics of high precision and rapid replacement of 3C industry, it is expected to promote the iteration of machine vision technology, the extension of application scenarios and category expansion, and it is expected to continuously promote the machine vision penetration rate of 3C industry in China. From the perspective of industry and product attributes, the application of machine vision in 3C electronics industry is the most mature. The industry attributes and product attributes of 3C electronics determine that the penetration rate of machine vision in this industry will be higher.

Track 2: The semiconductor industry will realize the whole process technical support of machine vision in the future.

The application of machine vision in semiconductor industry is expected to realize the whole process technical support of machine vision in the future. In 2019, the global sales of semiconductor equipment market was USD 57.6 billion, of which the market size in China was USD 12.9 billion, accounting for 22.4%. It is predicted that China's semiconductor investment will rank first in the world in the next few years.

Semiconductor industry has the characteristics of high integration and precision, and it is one of the earliest large-scale applications of machine vision technology. The application of machine vision in semiconductor industry involves the detection of semiconductor appearance defects, size, quantity, flatness, distance, positioning, calibration, solder joint quality and curvature, etc., especially in the whole process of wafer manufacturing, machine vision technology needs to be applied.

Track 3: The rapid development of new energy automobile industry, the demand of lithium battery industry blowout, and the application scenarios of machine vision expand.

In 2021, the output of lithium batteries in China has reached 23.26 billion, a year-on-year increase of 23.4%. The rapid increase of lithium battery production capacity has driven the rapid development of machine vision. In 2021, the market scale reached 1.77 billion yuan, and the CAGR reached 110% in 2019-2021.

The application scene and manufacturing process of lithium battery in machine vision are complex, and many processes need machine vision detection system. With the continuous improvement of battery cell, module and PACK measurement requirements, the conditions of the tested object are becoming more and more complicated, and full-line visual inspection has gradually become the standard for power battery manufacturers.

Track 4: The photovoltaic industry continues to accelerate its growth, and silicon wafer quality inspection is the key to the quality assurance and development of solar cells.

In 2021, China solar cell output CAGR reached 35%, and the year-on-year growth rate reached 42% in 2021, and the industry ushered in an accelerated growth period. In the same period, the application scale of photovoltaic industry driving machine vision has rapidly increased from 260 million yuan in 2019 to 650 million yuan in 2021, and the CAGR is as high as 58%.

In the whole process of battery production, the quality monitoring of incoming silicon wafer, the defect monitoring of process battery and the quality inspection of finished battery are the guarantee to produce high-quality battery. Each process section of the battery production quality monitoring system is provided with corresponding optical and mechanical vision modules (camera, light source, lens, etc.), which can be quickly configured to provide high-quality visual imaging effects.

Future trend of industrial machine vision

With the arrival of Industry 4.0, the demand for machine vision technology in industrial scenes continues to promote the development of industrial machine vision technology. These include: the improvement of 3D technical requirements, the gradual dominance of domestic substitution, and the integration of fragmented scenes.

Trend 1: In the huge application scenario, 3D technology will be more mature and universal.

With the development of 2D vision, 3D technology is also on the rise. Judging from the current trend, the development momentum of 3D machine vision is much greater than that of 2D. Although the current development of industrial machine vision is relatively mature, 3D technology is still in the early stage of development in China, and foreign companies and products are ahead of China in microscopic high-precision detection and occupy most of the market. Domestic enterprises began to gradually replace foreign enterprises in hardware and software.

Trend 2: Domestic substitution becomes the main theme, the competition between Chinese and foreign manufacturers is further intensified, and the market structure is reconstructed.

At present, the replacement rate of machine vision is 50%, but it is mostly limited to the field of 2D machine vision. In the future, with the win-win cooperation of domestic brands, the product features are professional and the types are refined, and the substitution rate will gradually increase. The industry will tend to be specialized in division of labor, and the autonomous visual platform, visual system and equipment will work together to gradually surpass foreign brands and grow into the main force of industrial vision in intelligent manufacturing in China.

Trend 3: Integrating fragmentation scenes and standardizing integrated equipment will be the next generation development direction of machine vision.

With the gradual expansion of industrial automation, products under intelligent manufacturing mode are produced in many varieties, small batches and individualization. Enterprises began to change to the production mode of mass customization, but machine vision technology can only identify and classify a few products in automated production lines, which is difficult to meet the fragmentation scene. In order to solve this situation, integrating fragmentation scenes and building integrated equipment will greatly promote the rapid integration of information technology and operational technology. At the same time, creating a digital closed loop of the whole process will also be one of the important measures.

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Reprinted from: Yiou think tank