Bar codes, familiar from daily shopping, and also increasingly two-dimensional codes, found on telephone bills, letters from banks and insurance companies or on electronic components in home computers, are at the center of automatic identification. Bar codes are the most commonly used identification technique for sorting and dispatching pallets and containers in industrial material flows. Bar code readers are used to pick products in automated warehouses and guide the completed shipping boxes quickly and reliably to the waiting parcel delivery service. Likewise, when baggage is automatically sent to the plane and arrives safely at the traveler’s holiday destination, SICK stationary and mobile bar code readers have done their job. But two-dimensional codes – 2D codes for short – are giving one dimensional bar code a run for their money wherever more data needs to be stored in just a few square millimeters of space, or where product safety is paramount. SICK 2D code readers ensure that only fully fitted and tested circuit boards are mounted into PC’s, for example.
Typical applications of laser measurement systems include dimensional testing of pallets in automated materials handling centers, collision prevention for container cranes in ports, and monitoring free-rolling utility or rail vehicle rights-of-way. Motorists in Europe frequently encounter laser measurement systems at toll booths, where they distinguish between different vehicle classes and the corresponding toll rates. And, combined with bar code scanners, laser measurement systems in parcel delivery services provide the assurance that senders are paying exactly the right freight charges for their package dimensions – and not one cent more.