Dr. Deng Wenping, CEO of Seebit Robotics: The turning point of the 3D vision industry has arrived

Four years after its establishment, six rounds of financing, and mass delivery of core products to leading companies in multiple industries, how did this 3D vision and industrial software company stand out? We talked to Dr. Deng Wenping, CEO of Visionbit Robotics , to reveal the winning code behind the rise of this 3D vision and industrial software company against the trend.

Deng Wenping, CEO of Seebit Robotics, was born in 1981. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science from the National University of Defense Technology, a joint PhD from the National University of Defense Technology and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), and is a computer system expert.

"The 2020 Spring Festival is unforgettable. When the epidemic was at its worst, the industry's first intelligent unloading and sorting production line based on 'AI+3D vision' was launched at Sany Heavy Industry's No. 18 Lighthouse Factory. The production line was delivered urgently, and there were very few technologies and experiences that the industry could refer to. On New Year's Eve and the first day of the first lunar month, more than a dozen core technical backbones of the company volunteered to give up their Spring Festival holidays and worked all night at the customer site with high morale and perseverance, and finally won this tough battle." - Dr. Deng Wenping, CEO of Seebit Robotics

Founded four years ago, it has raised six rounds of financing, and its core products have been delivered in batches to leading companies in multiple industries. How did this 3D vision and industrial software company stand out? We interviewed Dr. Deng Wenping, CEO of Visionbit Robotics, to reveal the winning code behind the rise of this 3D vision and industrial software company against the trend.

The turning point of 3D vision industry has arrived

GGII data shows that in 2021, China's machine vision market will grow by more than 45%, of which the 2D vision market size is about 11.72 billion yuan and the 3D vision market size is about 1.151 billion yuan. It is expected that by 2025, the scale of China's machine vision market will exceed 38 billion yuan, of which the 3D vision market size will exceed 10 billion yuan, and the penetration rate will increase rapidly.

Deng Wenping said that at present, China is moving from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing powerhouse, but it still faces many challenges. We are still subject to others in advanced manufacturing, core components, and industrial software. The production and manufacturing links with high standardization and single product specifications have been automated, while the flexible production and manufacturing needs of small batches, large batches, and customization have put forward new requirements for automation. How to make the automated production line intelligent and adapt to the production scenarios of products with various specifications is the biggest difficulty at present.

3D vision and industrial software, as key elements to enable flexible manufacturing of automated production lines, have been widely used in heavy industry, automobile, logistics, semiconductor, new energy and other industries, and are at a turning point on the verge of a full-scale outbreak.

Vision Robotics, founded in 2018, is a leader in this new field. With years of research and accumulation in computer vision, robotics, digital twins, cloud computing and big data, Vision Robotics has quickly established international leading advantages in 3D vision algorithms, flexible robot control, hand-eye coordination, production line-level robot coordination, factory-level intelligent planning and scheduling, and other aspects. Its global business has expanded rapidly, and it has won six rounds of financing in four years, and has won the favor of a number of investment institutions such as Matrix Partners, CICC Capital, Heyu Capital, Turing Ventures, China Merchants Xingxiang, Tongwei Capital, Daosheng Capital, and DiCe Investment.

Taking the difficult but correct path, deepening the development of heavy industry and automobile intelligent manufacturing

Relying on the industry-leading 3D vision core algorithm and industrial-grade system software capabilities, VisionBit Robotics has taken the lead in overcoming industry challenges such as flexible intelligent sorting production lines in heavy manufacturing and online high-precision measurement of large-size workpieces in automobiles, turning "impossible" into "possible" in the field of industrial intelligence.

In 2020, Visionbit Robotics put into operation the industry's first fully automatic intelligent unloading and sorting production line for steel plate cutting at Sany Heavy Industry's Lighthouse Factory No. 18. "On New Year's Eve and the first day of the first lunar month, more than a dozen core technical backbones of the company volunteered to give up their Spring Festival holidays and worked overnight at the customer site with high morale and perseverance, and finally won this tough battle." Deng Wenping still remembers the situation clearly.

In the past, heavy industry manufacturing steel plate cutting, blanking and sorting have long relied on manual work, resulting in extremely low production efficiency. At the same time, the harsh working environment also posed great safety hazards.

"In Sany Heavy Industry's No. 18 Lighthouse Factory, the VisionBit robot uses independently developed 3D vision technology and multi-robot intelligent collaborative control software to realize the robot's adaptive flexible sorting and intelligent planning and stacking, solving the problem of fully automatic flexible sorting of tens of thousands of steel plate cutting parts, greatly improving production capacity and liberating people from heavy and dangerous physical labor. Taking the difficult but correct path, technological innovation is the magic weapon for enterprises to quickly stand out." Deng Wenping told reporters.

After the first intelligent material unloading and sorting production line successfully reached full production, it quickly promoted the upgrading and transformation process of the entire heavy industry smart factory. In the past two years, Visionbit Robotics, together with multiple general contractors, has won orders from well-known companies such as Zoomlion, XCMG, Taiyuan Heavy Industry, China Railway Construction, Shaanxi Automobile, and Xingbang, with a market share of more than 70%. The application of 3D vision in the heavy industry has begun to explode.

Online high-precision measurement of large-sized automotive workpieces is another tough nut to crack for Visionbit Robotics.

Especially for new energy vehicle battery trays, which involve the measurement of thousands of feature points, traditional mechanical inspection tools, three-coordinate measurement, structured light 3D scanning and other dimensional quality inspection methods are time-consuming and inefficient, and cannot meet the quality inspection needs of factories' rapid batch production.

In 2020, Visionbit Robotics launched the world's leading and domestically pioneered multi-eye vision high-precision measurement machine for battery tray inspection in leading auto companies. The machine uses self-developed high-precision feature detection algorithms and 3D visual imaging technology. Multiple cameras simultaneously take pictures of the workpiece to be measured, perform parallel calculations, and perform joint measurements. Within 100 seconds, it can achieve online measurement of thousands of inspection points such as position, surface contour, flatness, symmetry, concentricity, linear distance, and missing or misplaced installation of large-sized workpieces, perfectly matching the production rhythm requirements of automated production lines.

Deng Wenping said: "The multi-vision high-precision measurement aircraft was developed by a team of doctors from Visionbit. It took 10 months to successfully develop and deliver the first set. More than ten sets were sold in 2021, and the signed orders for this product in 2022 have reached tens of millions of yuan."

From mass landing to accelerated overseas expansion, business is expanding in multiple dimensions

Ten years ago, the high-end machine vision market was monopolized by foreign brands. In recent years, China's machine vision industry has developed rapidly, and the localization share of major core components has exceeded 70%. What are the advantages of domestic and foreign manufacturers?

Deng Wenping objectively evaluated that from the perspective of visual hardware, compared with European, American and Japanese companies, domestic companies have a certain gap in chips, optical lenses, and overall machine performance; but in terms of AI visual algorithms, China has achieved overtaking in many application fields.

Deng Wenping further said: "In many application scenarios, domestic brands have gradually begun to replace imported brands. The reasons are: first, China has a good soil. Each application scenario is facing a massive market, and the supply chain can be deeply penetrated to the lowest cost. Second, China has made rapid progress in AI visual algorithm research, especially big data from large applications and large scenarios provides the 'fuel' for algorithm polishing. Third, Chinese companies' services are on call 24 hours a day, providing customers with the ultimate technical services and after-sales support. Foreign brands lack competitive advantages in response speed."

In 2020, Visionbit Robotics served a leading domestic customer. Prior to this, the customer had been cooperating with overseas companies, but with the surge in demand for flexible production, some drawbacks gradually emerged: "For the visual needs of relatively low-end standardized scenes, overseas manufacturers can achieve this through secondary agents in China. But when it comes to core algorithms, which need to be deeply customized for special scenes, their services are very lagging. Every time a modification is made, it is necessary to return to the US headquarters to apply. Sometimes a process takes one or two months, which seriously affects the delivery speed. Visionbit Robotics responds very quickly, completing the algorithm update and delivering the product within two days."