A project that uses AI and 3D machine vision to reduce energy requirements in glass manufacturing has received a funding boost.
The partnership between Glass Technology Services, I3D Robotics and Lucideon has been awarded financing from the UK government’s Fast Start competition under the Transforming Foundation Industries programme, which is overseen by Innovate UK.
The funding will be used to develop an intelligent robotic system to improve production processes within the energy-intensive foundation industries. The project will use the technology to monitor and improve product quality and minimise waste.
As current methods can reportedly be inflexible and time consuming, the robotic solution will allow for accurate, repeatable production process measurements and follows previous work inspecting defects in metals production.
David Eustice, senior technologist in R&D at Glass Technology Services, said: “This provides a great opportunity to use recent advancements in machine vision to improve the inspection of flat glass.
“I am excited about the potential use of artificial intelligence to identify a wider range of anomalies, not only to improve quality, but also to allow grading and appropriate use of glass which would typically be rejected, often after significant post processing.”
