California based partner R&D company PathPartner Technology is collaborating with Intel to deliver an AI technology-based arc welding defect detection solution to the manufacturing industry. 

PathPartner builds AI and Machine Vision software on Intel edge processors to help manufacturers adopt defect detection technology and expand it to address broader Industry 4.0 use-cases.

The AI technology, developed by Intel, aims to improve on manual defect detection in the robotic welding process. It uses a deep neural network based inferencing engine to detect welding defects in a way not possible with the human eye. The solution is scalable, powered by Intel Core i7 processors and uses Intel Movidius VPUs and the Intel Distribution of OpenVINO toolkit to detect defects with very low latency and high accuracy.

The collaboration builds on Intel’s AI technology and PathPartner’s expertise in building AI-based software to help manufacturers evaluate, adopt and productise the solution for their custom use-cases. PathPartner, owing to its breadth of industry experience, custom AI algorithm development expertise and engineering talent with hands-on experience on Intel edge processors, is well placed to support the manufacturers in their AI adoption journey.

“AI and machine vision technologies are transforming traditional manufacturing processes in ways we could never imagine before. PathPartner is extremely excited to collaborate with Intel and be at the forefront of this transformation,” said Raman Narayan, Country Head, USA at PathPartner. “With our extensive experience in building custom AI-based solutions coupled with the compute horsepower of Intel edge processors, we are committed towards helping our customers successfully deploy machine vision on their smart factory floors and bring unprecedented efficiencies in their manufacturing processes.”