Discrete event dataflow as a formal approach to specification of industrial vision systems

The need for more flexible manufacturing systems stimulates the adoption of industrial robots in combination with intelligent computing resources and sophisticated sensing technologies. In this context, industrial vision systems play a role of inherently flexible sensing means that can be used for a variety of tasks within automated inspection, process control and robot guidance. When vision sensing is used within a large complex system, it is of particular importance to handle the complexity by introducing the appropriate formal methods. This paper overviews the challenges arising during design, implementation and application of industrial vision systems, and proposes an approach, dubbed Discrete Event Dataflow (DEDF), allowing to formally specify vision dataflow in the context of larger systems.