Technology has revolutionized and is still changing the world we live in. Every day we here there is groundbreaking news about technologies applied to improve production processes or to give better services to humans.
However, these new technologies such as robots, drones, vision systems or artificial intelligence are also improving many other activities, which are not commonly mentioned, like the inspection of different products or processes. Today we want to introduce you some of the latest improvements in inspection technologies, which come from very different industries:
Roadbotics for Road Inspection
Finding and assessing the status of the roads is a time-consuming activity (and therefore not very cost-effective), which needs to be done continuously. To solve that problem, this American company has created a vision system for road inspection. The vision system is installed in a car, detecting anomalies and grading with colors the status of the road, creating a continuous assessment map of the roads’ quality.
This low-cost system allows identifying the most damaged roadways and prioritizing repairing by severity. What’s more, its continuous monitoring and machine-learning tool allow assessing the road’s performance over time intervals.
Robots for Energy Generator Inspection
Inspecting electricity generators is not always easy and quickly done, as the rotor has to be taken out from the stator every four years to make proper inspections.
Mitsubishi has created a 19,9 mm-tall robot that can solve that issue, making the inspection without removing the rotor, what leads to a reduction of inspection time from around 34 days (actual needed time) to only 6 days. This is done by introducing between the rotor and the stator the mentioned robot, which incorporates a propulsion mechanism comprising a crawler belt and flat plate.
3DJ Vision and General Motors
Many car buyers return their cars right after a purchase due to anomalies in the paintwork , what has become an issue for car manufacturers. The problem is that, for deep paintwork inspection, cars need to be taken out from the production line, leading to many cars being lightly inspected by only a few people.
This issue is being solved between the Spanish company 3DJ Vision together with the American giant General Motors, who have created a vision system to inspect the car painting in just 40 seconds. This has a great importance, as it means that all cars will be inspected without being taken out of the line.
As we have seen, new inspection methods are arising thanks to the rise of new technologies. Can you think of an industry than can be improved as the ones mentioned before?
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