Five companies have been shortlisted for the 2026 VISION Award, with the winner to be announced at the VISION trade fair in Stuttgart this winter.
The award, which celebrates excellence and innovation in the imaging and machine vision industry, attracted an impressive 75 entries this year, highlighting the sector’s dynamic growth and potential.
A jury awards the best innovation from the field of machine vision with a prize of €3,000, which is sponsored by Imaging and Machine Vision Europe (IMVE).
In alphabetical order, this year’s shortlisted entrants are:
- AIT (Austrian Institute of Technology), for PHOTODEX: Breaking the Motion Barrier in Photometric Stereo, Mobile Inspection System for Intelligent, Robust Industrial Surface Analysis
- Lidwave, for Odem: 4D Coherent Vision on a Single Chip, Native Per-Pixel Velocity for Machine Perception
- Medabsy, for Virtualising Machine Vision
- photonicSENS, for photonicSENS: From Plenoptic Research to Industrial 3D Vision
- Singular Photonics, for Litavis: a software-configurable SPAD image sensor for next-generation machine vision.
The list spans current machine vision development, from plenoptic imaging and coherent 4D sensing to photometric stereo, sensor virtualisation and configurable SPAD architectures, reflecting the range of approaches competing to push industrial vision systems beyond conventional 2D and 3D imaging.
The judging panel consisted of: Christian Ripperda, CEO of BN Automation; Jens Michael Carstensen, CEO of Videometer; Michael Engel, founder of Vision Components; Chris Yates, Managing Partner at Vision Ventures; Dr Ronald Muller, CEO of Vision Markets; Martin Wäny, CEO of Technologies MW.
The one-hour VISION Award session will take place in Stuttgart on Wednesday, 7 October, 2026, from 11:00-12:00 at Hall 8, Booth 8D90. Each shortlisted entrant will have the opportunity to present its innovation. At the end of the session, jury member Martin Wäny will announce the winner.
The session will be moderated by Warren Clark, the chief executive of IMVE owner Europa Science, who said: “Imaging and Machine Vision Europe has been the Vision Award sponsor for more than 20 years and we're very proud to continue that tradition into 2026. With its focus on innovation and driving intelligent vision forward, the Vision Award is aligned with our own values, particularly our Visionaries series of imaging innovators and integrators.”
