A PREDICTION
COMES TRUE Neil Sandhu, SICK U K product manager for imaging, measurement and ranging explores the brave new world of ‘SensorApps’
Nearly three years ago, SICK began signposting a future in which it will be commonplace to download a ready-made “App” to program and configure a programmable vision sensor, perfect for a specific application. It was a concept that some found difficult to envisage at first, especially coming from a traditional sensor hardware manufacturer. Now that prediction is coming true and it’s all down to SICK’s ground-breaking AppSpace software ‘ecosystem’. While, it can, and will, be a model that could be applied to all kinds of smart sensors, SICK AppSpace offers the tantalising prospect of being a game-changer to demystify machine vision, and especially 3D vision, for the many and no longer just the few.
With SICK AppSpace, developers have the freedom to design, develop and deploy their own customised solutions, to perfect simple web-based graphical user interfaces for operators and to distribute their applications across multiple hardware platforms and locations. Developers use the SICK AppStudio to create customerspecific applications, then the SICK AppManager to import Apps into the sensor and adapt it to the task in hand. The SICK AppPool cloud service makes it easy to install, manage and download sensor Apps to programmable SICK devices anywhere in the world.
It might seem curious for a sensor company to be taking the lead in the field of software. Yet, according to SICK, once sensors become smart and programmable, investing in software development, and even marketing application ‘kits’ including all the necessary hardware, makes perfect sense.
Developers have access to industry-standard image processing libraries including HALCON. They can work with their preferred programming technologies including graphical flow Editor, Lua scripting tools as well as C++ or Java. There are many integrated support functions such as auto completion, so that programmable sensor app developments will insert themselves easily into existing development processes.
Machine-builders and systems integrators are already beginning to reap the rewards of cheaper, quicker and easier integration using AppSpace. End-users, too, are benefiting from the plug and play benefits of a growing basket of ‘SensorApps’ rolled out by SICK’s own R&D teams.
Helpful utilities such as emulators, debuggers, resource monitors, and an extensive range of documentation and demo apps also make the development process easy. All software components are combined by the PackageBuilder into a single package that safely defines access rights.
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