How Artificial Intelligence overcomes major obstacles standing in the way of automating complex visual inspection tasks
From accommodating flexibility to minimizing overdetection, the latest AI algorithms have the necessary capabilities to match the sensibility and expertise of professional human inspectors.
Due to rising labor costs and a shortage of skilled inspectors, today’s manufacturers are facing intense pressure to automate processes that rely on the senses of experienced human workers. Visual inspection is one of the areas that continues to make use of human sensibility to a large extent. This sort of work requires extensive experience, particularly when defects can be subtle and tricky to spot.
Today’s emphasis on flexible production only adds to the challenge. Since products coming down the line can vary in color, shape and size, a characteristic that is considered a defect on one item might be considered acceptable for a different product. Efforts to automate visual inspection must account for these variations and the impact they may have on the algorithms’ ability to “learn” what a defect looks like.