Providing suitable vision sensors for robotic applications to deliver maximum functionality and operational flexibility, as well as easy process integration, has become an increasing focus for sensing and instrumentation expert BAUMER. In 2021, the jury of the "Inspection Award" recognized their expertise in enabling robots to "see." This award is presented annually to the most innovative products in the field of industrial image processing. Among 9 nominated products, the Baumer VeriSens XF / XC900 vision sensor took first place in the "Vision" category.

One of the key features of the VeriSens sensor is the innovative smart calibration target SmartGrid (patent pending) for bitmap-based Chessboard applications, which proved crucial to its success in the award competition. For robot operators, it is essential that the SmartGrid function not only enables unique automatic coordinate alignment but also eliminates the traditional problems and limitations of manual "hand-eye" coordination. As a result, "vision" can be brought to Universal Robots in just a few minutes, while simultaneously achieving higher precision.

Furthermore, the SmartGrid function supports automatic teaching for image correction to correct image distortion in real time. Basically, a simple mouse click is sufficient to eliminate any impairments caused by the lens or mounting without affecting subsequent processing time. In addition, teaching in the 3D direction can automatically adjust the distance. After conversion to world coordinates, VeriSens receives the scale specification directly via SmartGrid.

Installation and calibration of these vision sensors are simplified through Baumer's specially developed VeriSens URCap interface, optimized for robot control. The benefits of the various image processing options provided by this interface can be secured in just a few steps.

For robot programming, only two additional commands (nodes) are required to realize the advantages of vision-controlled robots in various control applications.

Setup and calibration are also simplified because free positions are used instead of predefined waypoints, and objects are then visually identified, while existing functions can already check for object overlap and gripper clearance. Furthermore, VeriSens sensors can be used for other functions, such as verifying free storage areas, performing quality control on objects in different positions, and identifying and measuring objects.