Edge Solution Integrates Intelligent Automation For Visual Inspection

Manufacturers aim to deliver the highest quality at the lowest cost during the production or assembly process. At the same time regulations need to be met and worker safety must be guaranteed at all times.

A wide range of assets, from machines to materials and products must be closely monitored for potential defects, and quality issues. Physical inspection of all this requires a vast amount of deep knowledge due to product variables and ever-changing circumstances on factory floors. If manufacturers fail to detect issues, they will be unable to take immediate remedial action resulting in loss of margin, or worse.

Intelligent automation for physical inspection in manufacturing can prevent problems from escalating or happening in the first place. More importantly, it tackles an even bigger problem in the near future. In most factories, proprietary knowledge has accumulated in the brains of a small group of domain experts. Years of experience and fine-tuned skills are almost impossible to replace, but inevitably the most experienced staff members will reach their retirement age. Protecting their knowledge by transferring it to BrainMatter as learning examples and detection skills, combined with actionable business rules is crucial.

BrainMatter intelligently automates the recognition of assets, the interpretation of their current state and initiates actions to resolve issues.  BrainMatter streamlines the process of automating tasks that require a level of knowledge, experience and skill. It eliminates manual processing with the attendant risk of human error, ensuring inspections are undertaken at an optimal frequency and in compliance with regulatory requirements.

Recently BrainCreators and Advantech, a global leader in industrial IoT, have announce an edge solution for automating visual inspection and observation. The end-to-end solution will combine the edge computing technology of Advantech with the BrainMatter platform for intelligent automation based on AI. This allows BrainMatter to perform automated tasks on-the-edge of innovative Internet of Things (IoT) devices suitable for industrial environments.

Collaboration is a logical step forwards

The collaboration is a logical step forwards since organizations increasingly want to use intelligent automation based on AI technology directly in the work environment. In addition, there is a huge demand for accessible solutions that are easy to scale up, offer seamless integration into existing environments and can be applied without specialist AI knowledge. This rings especially true in manufacturing industries where there is an increasing need for intelligent IoT solutions. This collaboration enables organizations to greatly increase their margins, improve customer experience and optimize operational efficiency. The technology can be used in a range of instances such as for the automatic inspection of products and objects, the anonymization of video images for pattern recognition and the observation of materials, terrains and buildings.

The best of both worlds

The collaboration enables edge solution ready packages to be used in the Cloud, on-premise and on the edge. The packages can be developed by the BrainMatter platform, which allows domain experts to transfer their knowledge to the platform based on examples. Through this transfer of knowledge BrainMatter can learn skills and perform reality checks against a given standard or objective. The actual situation, observed by the platform, can therefore be compared to a description of the situation as it should be.

Thanks to Advantech’s edge technology, IoT devices can execute BrainMatter’s automation models in near real-time due to the data being processed closer to the device, reducing network latency. In addition, the data is processed locally, reducing the amount of sensitive data traffic and ensuring customer security while saving energy.

“Our partnership with BrainCreators represents an important strategic partnership for Advantech. The partnership allows us to better roll out our AI solutions,” said Jash Bansidhar, Managing Director of Advantech Europe. “As Edge AI becomes increasingly important, it is vital that we work with partners who are able to combine domain knowledge with a practical mindset to deliver successful projects. We are convinced that BrainCreators can help customers get the best out of Advantech’s NVIDIA technologies.

Glenn Brouwer, Co-Founder and CRO of BrainCreators, is very enthusiastic about the collaboration: “As a company we are continuously improving BrainMatter. Advantech has an enormous amount of knowledge and technology in the field of edge computing. By combining their edge technology and knowledge with BrainMatter, we have developed together an end-to-end solution that enables visual inspection and observation in almost real-time”.

For more information: www.braincreators.com