Forecasts Are Issued for Market for Industrial Vision Systems

The European industrial vision systems market is projected to reach $948.44 million by 2011, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.6 percent, according to a 2005 report from Frost & Sullivan, a market research and analysis firm with offices in the US, the UK and other countries.

The forecast assumes that new applications will emerge, that system performance will improve, and that support from traditional industrial sectors will continue. The compilation notes that the market rose from $410.1 million in 2001 to $500 million in 2004, with an annual growth rate of 6.8 percent. Technology developments witnessed by the marketplace since 1995 have included Camera Link, Gigabit Ethernet, graphical user interface, and high-speed microprocessors and digital color cameras.

Automation gains

The study suggests that the demand for increased quality and quality control on the production floor, along with high throughput, has led companies to use the automated vision inspection technology, which can eliminate manual inspection and reduce the margin of error. It notes that customers will require systems that can inspect multiple parts and handle product changeovers without major reprogramming.

Among the products analyzed, 1- and 2-D metrology systems represented 22 percent of the total revenues in 2004. The report predicts that these shares will fall as 3-D systems replace the 2-D types. The revenue share of 3-D systems is projected to represent 19.13 percent of the total market by 2011, reflecting their increased popularity, particularly in the automotive and aerospace sectors. The rising demand for nonweb flaw systems and web-based inspection systems also is expected to erode the market share of the 2-D systems.