UTPVision has launched RoViCX, a robotic vision cell built to automate surface and dimensional inspection for low production volume manufacturing. The system combines two collaborative robots, one for part handling and one for inspection, inside a single reconfigurable cell that the company says delivers "high-quality surface inspection with high-precision dimensional measurements."
A vibrating hopper feeds parts onto a backlit glass disc, where the first cobot picks them up and transfers them to the inspection stations. A telecentric station handles dimensional checks using a 5 Mpixel progressive scan black-and-white camera paired with near-zero distortion bi-telecentric lenses. The second cobot carries a separate inspection module equipped with a 5 Mpixel color progressive scan camera and ultra-low distortion optics, capturing images as the glass disc rotates to cover each part surface through a full 360 degrees.
Engineers running mixed small-batch production will care about the illumination setup as much as the optics. Both stations use pulsed light, with the telecentric station relying on a diffuse white pulsed LED backlight and the surface station offering a white LED backlight alongside green or blue dome and low-angle red or yellow illuminators, each independently adjustable and selectable to suit different defect types.
Parts move through the cell without manual sorting. At the end of each inspection cycle, RoViCX routes parts into one of three collection areas, pass, rework, or scrap, based on the measurement and defect-detection results.
The cell runs on control software 3.0, which folds AI-based tools into a multi-level toolkit for building inspection recipes. It runs on an open Linux platform and can integrate with external databases, letting operators pull production statistics and reports directly from the system.
UTPVision positions RoViCX as a way to lower cost of ownership on lines where volumes are too low or too variable to justify a fixed, single-purpose inspection station.
