Image Processing is one of technologies particularly wanted to be practicable with the progress of computers. In addition to the fields of its early application such as inspection, measurement, character reading, and medical treatment, it has come into wide use in fields concerning security, sports, leisure, traffic, and finance recently.
This paper gives a brief description of modern three-dimensional image processing, and industrial and medical application, and introduces Fuji electric's devices for FA, OA, and medical treatment. Future development based on these common technologies will be extended to other fields.

Fuji Electric has put on the market new products to meet diversified needs for automatic visual inspection equipment: high-speed, advanced-function classifiers MWP-3220 and high-speed character readers MWP-3300.
The MWP-3220 makes high-speed decision possible by holding objects moving at high-speed as still images and pipelining them with a strobo light and a special scan camera. The MWP-3300 makes high-speed, high-precision character reading possible by the sequential reading of individual characters and pattern matching.

With the increase of high value added products and the automation of their production lines, image processor market has been spreading more and more. Fuji Electric has developed a high-speed image processor unit which consists of a high-speed processor module and rich image processing software library. This processor can be combined with Fuji FA personal computer or Fuji programmable controller MICREX easily to apply image processing in FA systems. And it has first realized advanced gray-level image processing at a video-rate speed. This development will spread the use of image processing in other fields as well as in factory automation.

Fuji Electric has developed high-resolution full-color display systems, CYBER FRAME and CYBER IMAGE, that can display and compare high-resolution images in medical or art fields simply with a personal computer. CYBER FRAME is an extension board for a personal computer that can display hi-vision images. CYBER IMAGE is an image filing system that can file many full-color images and can efficiently retrieve an image. This paper introduces the outlines of both systems.

Medical applications of image processing technology have yielded many fruitful developments of imaging modalities such as MRI. The function and Performance of these modalities is advancing day by day. These modalities produce many meaningful images which are managed by PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System), and the efficiency of daily business in hospitals has been improving. Fuji Electric has developed some systems and components of image processing such as MRI and PACS to sup-port the modernization of hospitals. This paper introduces some applications of image processing technology in MRI and PACS.

Fuji Electric has developed low-price, standard-class ultrasonic diagnostic equipment UF-5000. Though semi-portable, it is equipped with a 9-inch high-resolution CRT, transmitting and receiving multiple electronic focusing, and micro convex probes(10R,12R,and 15R). It has high quality of image, a physiological signal display function, and sufficient measuring functions. It can be used widely in medical treatment including cardiovascular, general abdominal, obstetrics, and gynecology imaging. This paper de-scribes the principle of ultrasonic diagnostic equipment and its image processing technology.

Japanese document processor XP-70S is a bilingual OCR to read word-processor documents and printed documents such as books and newspapers in Japanese or English at high speed and accurately. The XP-70S can mount two optional cards: a 90-degree turning card that can read documents long sideways turned by 90 degrees, and an extended image memory card that can store documents of A3 size maximum. The paper also introduces table reading software TPal, application software for XP-70S, for reading tabular-form documents such as a statistical table, a list of names, and an address table.

Social needs toward energy and time saving push up the automation and reliability of factory operation. AI technology that developed rapidly in 1970s made possible a new method of developing a system by the field staff followed by successive improvement. It was applied to out-of-automation sections and had good results such as improvement in control accuracy and reduction in working time for field sdjustment. This paper introduces Fuji Electric's aim and development plan for AI products and its attitude toward improvement in engineering efficiency.

Fuji Electric has been supplying a variety of AI tools for individual fields such as EIXAX, and recently, has developed a new real-time AI tool, AIMAX, based on these experiences. The AIMAX adopts compiler type engine called FORTRAN/KR as a new common reasoning engine to increase reasoning speed, and is designed to provide a man-machine interface suitable for control, diagnosis or planning , resulting in an easy tool to use. This paper introduces the basic concept of AIMAX and the features of the AI tools for control and diagnosis.

Sewage treatment plants have been increasing more and more in a stage of social infrastructure completion. In addition to increase in quantity, quality improvement such as operational reliability and efficiency is required. Conventional simple automation can not enough meet the requirements so that increase in operator's load is caused. One of measures to solve the above problem is AI application to the plants. This paper describes examples of the application and development of actual AI systems to match the features of sewage treatment equipment.

This system was constructed using FREXS/PS, which is a real-time expert system building shell for power system control. The system was installed as one of the real-time operation functions in the West Regional Control Center Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. The system features the following:
(1) Since the system uses many kinds of flexible knowledge representation such as objects, production rules and procedures, it is easy to maintain.
(2) Required procedure can be shown immediately on the operator screen by on-line and fast inference.

In the field of electric power, there are many jobs which need the experience and professional knowledge of operators. Recently, expert systems have been expected to automatize these intelligent jobs.
This paper outlines the expert system for initial guidance at equipment failure supplied to the West Regional Control Canter of Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. This system presents fault location, initial steps to be taken, where to inform and fault location time at a hydroelectric-generator or main-transformer fault. This system was developed by expert system building tool "Super COMEX."

The operation of air separation plant was not easily automated because of the characteristic of the equipment, and it was entrusted to experienced, skilled operators. Particularly in the steel industry, frequent change of consumption required a heavy mental burden on them to maintain quality and quantity rapidly and stably.
The expert system recently equipped for Yawata Steel Works of Nippon Steel Corp. has proved that is changed generation in the three air separation plants rapidly and performed optimum purity adjustment, resulting in work standardization, labor saving and energy saving.

The AIMAX-C is an advanced-function AI tool that can exe-cute fast reasoning and is suitable for building automated systems. Fuji Electric has developed and actually operated a blast furnace operation control system using AIMAX-C to be applied to the blast furnace process computer system. Since the system has a function of automatic heat level control, higher practicality has been proved than the previous guidance-level expert system. This paper introduces an outline of the system, artificial intelligence structure, and the result of application.

The importance of production scheduling in the domain of FA has been recognized, and production simulation has come into use. This paper introduces a system of a machining FMS production line using general-purpose distribution control system build-ing tool ΦNET developed by Fuji Electric. This line consists of production scheduling, production simulation and production instruction. ΦNET is applied to the production simulation among them. ΦNET will be developed to an FA simulator with which a production enginner can build a model with his field language and carry out simulation.