IERA Innovation Award Winner 2020: Robots Get 'Eyes' Like Humans

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The 2020 Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics & Automation (IERA) goes to Photoneo’s high resolution MotionCam-3D. This 3D scanner captures quick moving objects and delivers the sharpest eyes in the world for industrial robots.   

“The jury is pleased to announce the selection of Photoneo’s Motion Cam-3D as the winner of the 16th IERA Award,” says Jury Chair Robert Ambrose from IEEE-RAS. “The award celebrates the combination of innovative concepts with entrepreneurial efforts to bring those ideas to market. This year’s winner is a novel 3D imaging system merging the benefits of both stereo vision with structured light approaches to yield a fast and accurate perception system with applications in society and industry.”

Eyes for robots that spot submillimeters
"MotionCam-3D gives eyes to robots with the highest resolution and accuracy in the world”. said Jan Zizka, CEO of Bratislava-based maker Photoneo. „Our camera is able to inspect objects moving as fast as 140 kilometres per hour. Its qualities are useful in various fields: e.g. in e commerce and logistics, for object sorting and autonomous delivery systems. The camera also helps in food processing and waste sorting as well as harvesting in agriculture. Thanks to accurate machine vision, robots can also analyse objects with high resolution images, which is important in quality control”.

Making automation affordable for SMEs
Smart cobot applications like the IERA award winner considerably lower the hurdles for small and medium-sized companies to use robotics for automation. “A traditional industrial robot can easily be equipped with new tools to transform them into truly collaborative helpers”, said Milton Guerry, President of the IFR. 

IERA Award 2021
In 2021 the IERA Award session will be hosted by IEEE RAS at the ICRA conference from May 30 to June 5, 2021 in China. The call for application has been released and is available below. Applications must be submitted until February 28, 2021.