AI / ML has also enabled new industrial use cases which seemed impossible in the past ; visual inspections of oil rigs , automated quality inspections and remote monitoring of safety-critical assets have become a new reality , which we at Wipro are driving for some of our key customers .”
How machine vision is driving automation innovations From smart warehouses to subsea inspections , every new advancement in automation is driven by machine vision being at the forefront of such use cases .
“ For example ,” Nisal explains , “ oil and gas explorations in the deep sea can reach great depths because of machine vision . A magnetic crawler attached with a camera can reach great heights and remote places in industrial plants and perform difficult inspections .
“ A robot can detect internal cracks in a gas pipeline proactively , thereby saving millions of dollars . Robots can proactively alert operators by grading the corrosion of pipes from drone pictures and videos , helping operations be a lot more preventive while reducing systems downtime . This grading is done using complex machine vision and deep learning techniques .
“ Overall , the relationship between industrial robotics and machine learning is becoming increasingly symbiotic , and this is expected to accelerate as technologies continue to advance .”
Central to the advances in machine vision are innovations in edge computing . Increasingly powerful edge computing , plus a growing universe of deep learning models for AI , are radically expanding what machine vision can do .
“ Recent innovations in edge computing have tremendously helped accelerate the use of machine vision in manufacturing ,” Nisal explains .
“ Recent advancements in cameras , AI , and chipsets are boosting the use of machine vision applications . Among the 39 use cases analysed , 7 have been flagged as particularly interesting , including flaw detection , autonomous driving , and contaminant identification . Machine vision has the highest return on investment ( ROI ) and quickest amortisation time of all Industry 4.0 technologies ”
“ Machine vision has empowered industrial robots with the ability to see things with high resolution and speed ”
OMKAR NISAL MD UK & I , WIPRO aimagazine . com 51