Vslam creates the 2.0 era of natural navigation

Visual navigation refers to a navigation technology that uses a camera to collect images of the surrounding environment, filter and calculate the images, complete its position determination and path recognition, and make navigation decisions.

Market

Landing applications are gradually increasing

Although compared with the laser slam navigation that has gradually entered the mature stage, the development of visual navigation is slightly lagging behind, but due to its characteristics, visual navigation is considered to be one of the main directions of future industrial applications.

The first is the price advantage. Compared with mainstream magnetically guided/laser-guided AGVs on the market, the advantages of vision sensors are first that they are very competitive in terms of cost performance. The world's top industrial camera suppliers sell products at approximately RMB 3,000, which are laser sensor products of the same level 10-20% of the selling price. Lower manufacturing costs mean lower product prices, which is more beneficial to enhancing the competitiveness of the ontology enterprise's products or the end customer's return on the investment cycle.

Secondly, in terms of intelligence, the ability to acquire visual navigation information is powerful. Because visual navigation can extract semantic information from the environment, it can adapt to the complex scenes of customers in regular use needs, such as identifying shelves and pallets that have been deformed after long-term use; extracting information about the rapid increase in handling capacity in a short period of time; in small spaces Vehicle scheduling and so on.

In addition, the visual navigation module has system scalability. With the continuous improvement of peripheral supporting facilities such as communication equipment/processors, the visual navigation module is advancing rapidly. The connection of visual navigation and computer can realize large-scale scheduling tasks, and the integration of visual navigation technology with 5G and cloud systems will also go further.

From the perspective of entry companies, there are not many companies in the industry that focus on visual navigation products. Many companies use it as one of the product lines for development, and some companies are still waiting. In general, with the increasing number of companies entering the market, visual navigation technology has also been further developed in recent years, especially with the increasing number of landing applications. In the future, with the further development of technology and the market’s awareness of visual navigation products It is believed that large-scale applications will be ushered in further improvement.

Blue Core Technology

In March 2021, Blue Core Technology announced the completion of Series A financing; in April, Blue Core Technology officially released Eagle-M3, a visual obstacle avoidance product for mobile robots. As a VMR (Vision Mobile Robot) company, Blue Core Technology, its core technology, Deep Vision, has gradually moved from the low-key behind-the-scenes to the front stage.

From 3D vision, sensor to complete machine, create a full-chain product matrix. Blue Core Technology was established in 2016. Although it is a young robot company, it has been in the field of vision for many years. The founding team of Blue Core Technology comes from the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences With nearly two decades of technical research, exploration, and entrepreneurship in the field of vision, it is an out-and-out "Department of Chinese Science".

Based on the national conditions of the aging population and the development trend of intelligent manufacturing, and the industrialization of machine vision in the security field, the founding team of Blue Core Technology judged: the era of robots has come, and deep vision can improve the flexibility and intelligence of robots. Every machine in the future Robots must have at least one set of vision.

Bluechip has deployed ahead of schedule and continued to invest, and currently has a full-chain product matrix from 3D vision sensors, vision systems, complete robots to industry solutions. The product matrix of the entire chain enables BlueCore to have customer service capabilities in multiple industries and complex scenarios.

Deep vision empowers multi-scenario applications in manufacturing

In a large consumer electronics factory, the environment is complex and changeable, which is a big test for mobile robot positioning and navigation, especially in finished products warehouses, where goods are frequently in and out of the warehouse. Relying on lidar for navigation is easy to lose positioning, but using 3D vision navigation can solve the problem. Location loss caused by scene changes.

In addition, the company has higher requirements for the safety level of robots. There are large blind spots in laser obstacle avoidance, and 3D visual obstacle avoidance can make up for laser obstacle avoidance defects. After the project went life, the factory realized a fully automated logistics of raw material warehouse-production area-finished product warehouse.

Focus on in-depth vision technology and market, catch up with first-class enterprises

Dr. Gao Yong, founder, and CEO of Bluecore Technology said that since its establishment, Bluecore Technology has been determined to be a new generation of industrial mobile robots and to give robots strong perception capabilities through deep vision. After the continuous investment, BlueCore's mobile robot depth vision system has formed a complete technical system, and the application market is advancing rapidly.

At present, BlueCore's products and solutions have covered 3C electronics, semiconductors, new energy, auto parts, construction machinery, clothing, and other industries. Cooperative customers include Huawei, ZTE, Toshiba, Foxconn, COMAC, Zhejiang Province Public Security Department, Weixing, Qipai, etc.

"Technically learn from Siasun's innovation and development, and catch up with Siasun's business in terms of business."-Lanxin Technology has set itself a goal of learning and catching up.