Ricoh's core technologies that have supported a wide array of business sectors include advances in optics, image processing, electronic devices, electronic packaging, and material science. In preparation for machine vision development, Ricoh has re-organized these core technologies, by considering their marketability and future trends, and restructured them into three technology platforms.
1) Joint Optics / Image Processing Optimization (JOIPO) Platform
2) Sub-Wavelength Structure (SWS) Platform
3) Micro-System Platform
At Ricoh the optical system architecture that unifies the three platforms is known as Hetero-Integration Photonics (HIP), and is making inroads in the machine vision market leveraged by the HIP architecture.
With machine vision developed under the HIP architecture, Ricoh will provide customers with new value by expanding the imaging region. By fusing the JOIPO, SWS, and Micro-System platforms, Ricoh will provide optical modules whose performance comes ever closer to that of the human eye. In addition, it will forge a new machine vision environment that can capture information in domains inaccessible to human vision. As a result, automation will become possible in 2D and 3D as well as invisible and multidimensional imaging in situations where reliance on human workers has so far been unavoidable.

Fig. Optical system architecture: HIP conceptual diagram

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