Recently proposed regulations will require bar coding on all unit dose medications and increased reporting of safety problems involving medicines. In addition to reducing the high rate of medical errors from the point drugs are manufactured through the point they are administered to the patient, the machine-readable RSS and CS codes promise improved administration efficiencies and rapid detection of potential errors.

"As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues its focus on enhancing medication safety through the application of bar coding, Cognex continues to develop the technology our customers will need," says Justin Testa, Senior VP of Marketing for Cognex. "By enhancing our RSS support with CS code-reading capability, In-Sight is ready for the next generation of pharmaceutical packaging equipment and robotic drug distribution systems, as well as medication dispensing cabinets and automated storage and retrieval systems."

In-Sight vision sensors are high-performance, on-line inspection devices used in a variety of pharmaceutical applications, including optical character verification, 2D code reading, blister pack inspection, as well as label and tamper-evident safety seal inspection. Each sensor provides field-proven Cognex vision software tools, a vision spreadsheet interface for fast, easy application set-up, and built-in Ethernet communications.