Machine vision technology company Automation Technology (AT) promoted Nina Claaßen to head of marketing. Claaßen has been in marketing at AT for two and a half years. In this role, she initially redefined the company’s corporate identity and revised its branding. She also worked to improve communication channels and thus create more transparency. As head of marketing, she will focus on strengthening AT’s visibility. Artificial intelligence company BrainChip teamed with vision technology company Prophesee to deliver next-generation platforms for OEMs seeking to integrate event-based vision systems with high levels of AI performance coupled with ultralow power technologies. The partnership pairs BrainChip’s neuromorphic Akida processor with data from Prophesee’s neuromorphic-based camera sensor to process inference. Industrial automation company Balluff expanded its technology team at its Veszprém, Hungary, location and plans to open a new office in Budapest. The new location will serve to further its collaboration with nearby universities. The office is planned to be ready by August 2022. Smart Vision Lights received patent number US 11,328,380 B2 for its latest machine vision light innovation, the DoAll Light. The patent is the latest addition to the Smart Vision Lights portfolio of patented machine vision-related illumination technology. The DoAll Light features a dome light, two angles of dark field illumination, NIR, RGBW ring lights, and a four-quadrant multispectral ring light in a single unit, making it highly flexible in its machine vision illumination applications. Intelligence company Opteran secured $12 million in funding led by Join Capital. The company plans to expand across international markets and commercialize a standard for machine autonomy called Opteran Natural Intelligence. The company says the approach reengineers insect brain patterns to solve the fundamental limitations of current state-of-the-art AI and introduce the third wave of AI: genuine brain biomimicry.