Chroma ATE : Label-free Object Recognition for Flexible Manufacturing

So far, with Industry 4.0, the manufacturing industry has always been focused on production efficiency as a key for improvement. However, more recently, corporations also have to face issues such as increasing labor shortages and rising wages. Chroma introduces the "Object ID Recognition System" to tackle both issues at once, quickly dispatching the raw materials to the right stage on the production line.

Previously, factories had to rely on manual scanning of barcodes for the classification and identification of raw materials, exhausting the labor force. Chroma and its partners jointly developed the intelligent "Object ID Recognition System" that quickly recognizes comparable workpieces. It uses single or multiple laser measurement devices to obtain the surface values of objects and compares the edge computing results with the model characteristics recorded on the host, for instant recognition of the workpiece. There is no need for any temporary label or barcode throughout the specific manufacturing process. This also can eliminate inconveniences such as distorted barcodes that are unreadable due to environmental factors, e.g. high temperature. Laser recognition serves to easily identify the type of workpiece and immediately send it to the right production process or equipment, greatly reducing the time and error rate associated with manual classification.

Chroma MES (manufacturing execution systems) can receive the object ID in real-time. This makes barcode modules no longer necessary, reducing a great amount of labor and time. Moreover, Chroma MES can also send bound recipes to the equipment on the line to improve recipe accuracy, matching efficiency, and production yield. The application of object recognition can increase the accuracy of products in quality control, warehouse management, work-in-process management, packaging, and shipping. At the same time, it can adapt to the manufacturing environment and improve the identification process, enabling mixed production on a single assembly line and facilitating small-scale, mixed-mode manufacturing.

Chroma MES