IIT Kharagpur to Provide AI & ML Solutions for MSMEs
IIT Kharagpur is working on a mission to make AI & ML applications affordable for India’s industrial sector including MSMEs. According to news website, IIT Kharagpur has developed an innovative system consisting of a low-cost imaging device and AI-enabled software for real-time metrological inspection.
The developed system can be utilized in the production line to check the quality of the jobs and get instant results.
Explaining the benefit that MSMEs will draw fr0m such an innovation, Prof. Surjya K Pal said, “The MSMEs mostly rely on manual inspection of the jobs produced in a batch where a few samples are randomly selected and checked manually. Accordingly, the entire batch is either rejected or accepted, which lacks effectiveness and increases the cost of production. The potential of the developed solution can be leveraged to inspection of each job in a batch, in real-time, and at a very minimum cost.”
This AI-enabled software will enhance the image quality captured by the low-cost camera at par with a high-quality camera output and process the image in real-time. Further, it automates the acceptance or rejection of production jobs and delivers the outcome for real-time managerial insights.
With an accuracy close to 98 per cent, the solution can measure the dimensional features of the job, and also it can inspect the presence of scratches, dents, etc., in a job. It takes only approximately 12 seconds for the analyses to be complete. The accuracy check and timeliness of the solution have been guaranteed by testing it on different types of jobs. Researchers are working further to reduce the time.
“Automation is one of the key aspects of digitalization and is also the need of the hour. The vision of manufacturers revolves around three things that are how fast can manufacturing be performed, how better, and how cheaper? The first highlights a higher rate of production, the second implies the use of innovation in manufacturing and the third aims at reducing the cost,” remarked Prof. Pal, the lead of Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology.
