The I-CUBE project will be developed over a period of two and a half years, and involves the testing of alternative approaches for applications of artificial vision

Bologna, 19th February 2013 - Datalogic, world leader in automatic identification and one of the main providers of global solutions, as well as producer of bar code readers, mobile computers for data collection, and vision systems, has obtained over 1 million euros in funding for research and development activities in the area of two projects funded by the Emilia Romagna Region, VIALAB and I-CUBE.

The Regional Body has recently published the rankings for its "Research, Innovation and Growth" programme that supports the creation of new industrial research projects within the scope of investment programmes and employment development. The project presented by Datalogic, involving industrial research activities and experimental development, has passed through a stringent selection process (with around 100 applications received), and has been approved for its high degree of innovation and for its involvement with qualified partners such as the University of Bologna.

The I-CUBE project will be developed over a period of two and a half years, and involves the testing of alternative approaches for applications of artificial vision, such as object identification with Direct Part Marking, tracking objects in space, or the human-machine interface on the web. With this project, Datalogic aims to expand the interoperability of its products and also the remote management of them, thanks to industrial broadband connectivity technologies.

I-CUBE represents the continuum of VIALAB, a project on vision, promoted from the beginning by the Emilia Romagna Region. The project, which was completed last year, was developed thanks also to collaboration with the System Group (a global player, active in the industrial automation sector), highly specialised research bodies including both universities and members of the region's high technology network, such as AERTECH LAB and T3Lab, and with CRIT Research™, a technology broker specialising in the strategic management of innovation processes. The research was carried out by a group of young newly-graduated researchers, who were working full time on VIALAB and were guided by university tutors.

During the recent conference "VIALAB - Technologies and algorithms for artificial vision", held on 13th February at the Kilometro Rosso Technology and Science Park at Bergamo, the results obtained by the research laboratory during the last two years of activity were presented. From this meeting it was demonstrated that VIALAB has united the expertise of industry and of research, representing an effective response to the requirements of an industry (automation, controls and mechatronics) that has been watching artificial vision with great interest for a long time and which, in recent years, has begun to appreciate its full potential.

Giancarlo Micheletti, Chief Technology Officer of Datalogic Group, commented: "We are proud to have obtained this funding from the Emilia Romagna Region. We believe that artificial vision is the most strategically promising technology for the evolution and innovation of our range of products and solutions in the context of a highly competitive field. The reduction of production process costs and the need for product quality improvement will increasingly demand the adoption of this technology in industry. Artificial vision has the goal of giving automated machines the capacity for objective and autonomous evaluation, thus allowing them to work with flexibility and speed."

Datalogic has always firmly believed that research is fundamental for its business and invests around 7% of annual sales revenue into R&D, having over 1,000 patents registered throughout the world. These patents are also the result of acquiring international companies that have developed innovative technologies, as in the case of the two American companies Evolution Robotics Retail and PPT Vision, active respectively in the fields of visual pattern recognition and machine vision.