Mitsubishi Electric and Sony Semiconductor Solutions have agreed to form a joint venture that will develop and offer vision-sensor solutions to accelerate automation and advanced manufacturing equipment.
The joint venture, called Advanced Vision Solutions, is scheduled to begin operations in October 2026 and will focus on capturing conditions and changes across a broad range of manufacturing sites that have traditionally been difficult to visualize. The JV will also support automation and autonomous operation on a wide range of manufacturing equipment that may contribute to labor savings and unmanned operations, the companies said.
Under the new joint venture, Sony’s image sensors and edge AI technologies will be combined with Mitsubishi’s factory automation (FA) control systems. These solutions will capture conditions at manufacturing sites, product quality, equipment operations and other information to allow makers to find data to make timely and autonomous improvements to equipment and operational conditions with minimal manual intervention.
The vision system will incorporate diverse manufacturing-site data to help develop multimodal production systems capable of detecting changes, early signs and other conditions that cannot be identified from a single type of data alone, the companies said.
Under the deal, Mitsubishi Electric will own 60% of the joint venture and Sony Semiconductor will own a 40% stake.
