The corresponding agreement was signed on November 9, 2022 at the SPS trade fair in Nuremberg by Dr. Martin Schenk, Senior Vice President Product Management Sick, and Dr. Olaf Munkelt, Managing Director MVTec Software GmbH. Sick's automation solutions are now also available with algorithms from MVTec Halcon, the standard software for industrial image processing, on embedded and PC systems. Sick is one of the world's leading solution providers for sensor-based applications for industrial applications. MVTec, on the other hand, is a technological pioneer in machine vision software with its Halcon, Merlic and Deep Learning Tool software products. "With the closer strategic cooperation we have now entered into, we are bringing the strengths of the two worlds of sensor technology and machine vision even closer together. Users are the clear beneficiaries of this one-stop solution," explains Dr. Munkelt.

Leveraging common strengths through collaboration

The integration of MVTec Halcon into Sick's programming ECO system provides the answer to the increased requirements of the automation industry in terms of flexibility and scope of services. "Through cross-company collaboration, we can leverage strengths and present our customers with solutions that generate greater transparency and quality even faster. The strategic further development of our Inspector P series and Sensor Integration Machine family as well as our extensive camera portfolio allows us to respond even more flexibly to customer needs. Furthermore, our OEMs and integrators can participate in Halcon's extensive developments. Our quality control systems in particular benefit from the possibilities that Halcon offers, for example with OCR and other image processing algorithms," says Dr. Martin Schenk, Senior Vice President Product Management.

Machine vision opens up new industries and applications

Sick and MVTec have been working together since 2015. It is the declared aim of both companies to jointly drive forward technological developments in the automation industry by contributing their own strengths. "By combining classic image processing methods with new deep learning technologies, industrial image processing is giving the entire automation industry a technological boost. Increasingly powerful embedded systems are also contributing to this. Machine vision is thus increasingly becoming the eye of production. And we at MVTec supply the right software for this," says Dr. Munkelt.

With Halcon, MVTec offers software that is specially tailored to the needs of industrial PCs and embedded devices such as sensors. This ensures that the software achieves optimum performance on all platforms. At the same time, MVTec's software supports all relevant interfaces, enabling rapid implementation and maximum compatibility within the embedded devices. This gives users more options when selecting suitable operating systems, architectures and camera models for their solutions.