Rugged, Powerful & Cost-Effective

Crave Technical developed the AutoBox in response to industry need​. The AutoBox is a rugged, powerful and cost-effective PC-based vision & machine controller​ that contains state-of-the-art vision library with MVTec HALCON​ and a state-of-the-art PLC controller with Beckhoff TwinCAT.​ Other features include:

  • Integration software to manage common tasks and reduce project timeline​
    • Image acquisition and processing​
    • Logging & diagnostics​
    • Image FIFO​
    • Multi-threaded by default​
  • Multi-camera, multi-protocol support​
  • Scalable to handle any machine control, factory, or IOT task​
  • Industrial connectors for most cables
  • I/O and Light Control
    • Standard with digital I/O
    • Customizable with any type of I/O
    • Extensible via EtherCAT to add servo/stepper control, safety, remote I/O, etc.
    • Light Control
    • Strobe, continuous duty, overdrive
    • Optocouplers for tight timing control and strobing
    • Photometric stereo control
    • Camera hardware or software triggers

AutoBox Variants

AutoBox 1000
AutoBox 2000
Computer
Beckhoff Industrial PC, Intel® Atom™ E3845, 1.91 GHz, 4 core processor, 4GB DDR4 RAM, 60GB M.2 SSD 3D Flash memory, Microsoft Windows 10 LTSB, 64-bit
Beckhoff Industrial PC, 7th Generation Intel Core i5-7500, 3.4 GHz, 4 core Processor, 16GB DDR4 RAM and 120GB M.2 SSD, Microsoft Windows 10 LTSB, 64-bit
Camera Control
Communicate with up to 2 GigE cameras and 1 USB3 camera
Communicate with up to 3 GigE and 2 USB3 cameras, more cameras possible with optional switch and computer capabilities
Machine Vision Software
MVTec HALCON or MERLIC image acquisition and image processing software
MVTec HALCON or MERLIC image acquisition and image processing software, Runtime license included MVTec HALCON Deep Learning runtime license optional
PLC
Beckhoff TwinCAT 3.1 Software PLC Application
Control up to 3 axes of point-to-point motion control optional
Beckhoff TwinCAT 3.1 Software PLC Application
Control up to 10 axes of point-to-point or NC motion control optional
Safety
Optionally add safety PLC rated to ISO 13849, PLe, and safety I/O as needed
Physical I/O
12 channels digital inputs, 16 channels digital outputs, 24VDC, PNP, 2 optocoupler channels to enable high-speed camera trigger and light strobing
Additional digital and analog I/O optional
Fieldbus
Standard with EtherCAT Master or Slave, Ethernet/IP, OPC UA, Modbus TCP, Profinet, TCP Sockets optional
Light Control
Control any light or light controller: Continuous duty, switching, overdrive strobing available. Photometric stereo optional
Integration Software
AutoBox software platform provides an interface between HALCON and PC/PLC for machine vision and I/O capabilities

AutoBox Architecture