Cognex corporation launches new engineering team focused on the growing fibre optic industry

Citation

(2001), "Cognex corporation launches new engineering team focused on the growing fibre optic industry", Sensor Review, Vol. 21 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2001.08721bab.002

Cognex corporation launches new engineering team focused on the growing fibre optic industry

Cognex corporation launches new engineering team focused on the growing fibre optic industry

Keywords: Machine vision, Fibre optics

Cognex, a leading supplier of machine vision systems, announced that it has formed a new engineering team to develop machine vision solutions specifically for the fibre optic industry. The new team, based at the company's headquarters in Natick, Massachusetts, is headed by Cognex co-founder and senior vice president of Engineering, Marilyn Matz.

The fibre optic team will focus on the pressing and fast-growing needs of the manufacturers of fibre optic components who want to automate the assembly of components such as optical amplifiers, laser diodes and pump lasers. Currently, much of the manufacturing is done manually and, as a result, the yields are quite low and, therefore, production rates are not keeping up with the market demand.

"Our leading-edge products have made Cognex the 'industry standard' for suppliers of capital equipment used in the automated manufacture of semiconductors and electronic products, and likewise. We plan to become the standard in the new, and potentially very large, market for capital equipment used in automated fibre optic assembly", said Justin Testa, senior vice president of marketing for Cognex.

"Several optical component manufacturers are already using our vision systems to automatically align components in the highly-precise fibre optic assembly process, and there are many other applications that we are now involved in", said Testa.

One company Cognex is currently collaborating with is Automation Engineering Incorporated (AEI), a leading supplier of advanced fibre optics automation equipment.

Andre By, president and technical director of AEI, said, "To remain competitive, fibre optic companies need reliable and effective manufacturing automation systems to increase production capacity in a very short time span. Our collaboration with Cognex to integrate their unique PatMax™ (patent pending) technology with AEI's FlexAuto™ open architecture software platform for integrated motion control and machine vision has allowed us to offer fibre optic manufacturers robust automated solutions for alignment, assembly, and testing functions. These systems will be able to further improve our customers' time-to-market, while enabling them to double, triple, and even quadruple production capacities quickly".

Cognex's fibre optic team will work closely both with manufacturers of fibre optic components and with the manufacturers of capital equipment to expand the use of Cognex's core technologies, and the team will develop application-focused solutions to help those customers meet the growing need for precise and high speed manufacturing of fibre optic components.

Technical contact: Geoff Collins, Cognex UK, Units 7-9, First Quarter, Blenheim Road, Epsom KT19 9QN. Tel: +44 (0)1372 726150; Fax: +44 (0)1372 726276; E-mail: gcollins@cognex.com