In a recent $4,650 research report by Market & Market, a TX-based research firm, they projected that machine vision systems and components will grow at an annual rate of 8%+ for 2013 to 2018. They attribute this growth to increased processing power, reduced costs and growth in robotics and automation thereby increasing the scope and need of machine vision technology in a wider range of production applications.

Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX), one of the largest providers in the machine vision industry, just set new records for 2012 revenue. Net profits were 21%!