Bavarian Innovation Prize 2014 for Micro-Epsilon

Micro-Epsilon: Co-developed by Micro-Epsilon, the University of Passau and BMW, the reflectCONTROL automatic inspection system for painted surfaces in vehicle production, has been honoured with the Bavarian Innovation Prize.

In November 2014, the Bavarian State Ministry honoured Micro-Epsilon with a special award for its reflectCONTROL surface inspection system in the "Cooperation Economy-Science" category.

reflectCONTROL automatically detects the smallest unevenness, bumps and roughness, guaranteeing the 100% quality control of industrial, reflecting surfaces in cycle times. The system provides quantitative analysis of defects and offers high sensitivity. Developed by Micro-Epsilon, the system operates fully automatically. Compared to previous manual inspection methods, the system offers significant advantages. Due to its continuously high reliability, the smallest surface defects are recognized, minimising costly rework of the vehicle chassis. The inspection system is installed on several parallel working robots and has been successfully applied in high volume automotive production for the inspection of surface defects.

"Mainly the cooperation with regional partners is an important factor in terms of knowledge transfer. Together with our local partner Micro-Epsilon, we can develop innovative methods and translate them into practice later on. This prize is our motivation to maintain the long-standing, good and trustful cooperation", said Prof. Dr. Tomas Sauer as representative of the university management for knowledge transfer.

Prof. Dr. Martin Sellen (Micro-Epsilon management), "This award is both a motivation to continue our development work and an appreciation of the tremendous effort and performance that all partners in the project have contributed to date."

This technology can be applied wherever reflective and lustrous surfaces need to be inspected. Other possible application examples are the surface quality control of displays or of precision lenses that are, e.g. used in modern space telescopes.

Established in 2012, the Bavarian Innovation Prize is awarded every two years by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Chamber of Commerce and the Association of the Bavarian Chambers of Commerce.