SANEZOO won an award for its camera
system for intelligent visual quality control
SANEZOO EUROPE s.r.o. is a relatively young company that solves specific problems differently than other industry suppliers operating on the market. At the International Engineering Fair in Brno (2023), the company won an award in the category of Innovation in Automation Technology and Industry 4.0. for its innovative camera method for sensing products and components. The image processing uses multi-channel deep neural networks trained in the same way as the output inspection worker. Similarly, it assembles different images of the inspected object and can identify even difficult to see defects and determine their type based on changes under different lighting conditions.
Exhibit name: SANEZOO UNITY - Camera system for intelligent visual inspection.
The prize was accepted by Mr. Luboš Lorenc and Mr. Luboš Brzobohatý, founders of the Brno start-up, now European company SANEZOO
"We offer smart robotics products that use artificial intelligence to reliably evaluate machined, pressed, cast or forged products, polished, sanded or painted surfaces, in a variety of materials. It understands what defects are present on components and products, understands the individual surfaces and can evaluate whether they are defective. De facto, in the seven years we have been on the market, we have developed our own methods," says Luboš Brzobohatý, describing SANEZOO UNITY's performance.
"Often, our customers cannot choose between several suppliers and then choose our technology because it is the only one that, importantly, solves their task reliably and accurately. Some tasks can only be solved by people, operators, who have to take each part in their hands, look at it from several angles and then identify individual defects.Nobody is perfect. One gets tired faster and loses focus when doing this work. Letting defective parts go can result in fines or even loss of the job. When you're checking the same product for hours, it's easy to miss a defect," says Luboš Brzobohatý, adding: "In fact, we are also addressing the problems of manufacturing companies with a shortage of employees on the market. Manufacturing companies don't want to replace employees with robots, they just want to ensure production capacity and not lose new orders," says Luboš Brzobohatý, who is convinced that smart solutions in the field of robotics and automation are the right way forward.
Where human eyes get tired and attention gradually weakens due to the monotony of work, the product of the Brno company SANEZOO can perform a visual inspection of the product. "It looks for various types of defects on all types of surfaces, including glossy or textured ones," explained Luboš Brzobohatý, one of the company's founders. The SANEZOO UNITY product won a gold medal at the International Engineering Fair in Brno, which continues until Friday.
In the same way that a surface quality inspector must examine a product from different angles to detect defects in its surface, the approach used can combine different images of the product's surface. The system consists of cameras, special lights and software that works on the basis of artificial intelligence. However, it does not compare products to a defined ideal, but focuses on finding faults. This prevents inaccurate evaluation of faultless products as defective.
"Visual product inspection is a monotonous and uninteresting job. In addition, this work makes you tired and can gradually lose your attention. Releasing defective parts to the customer can have unpleasant consequences for the manufacturer - they can be fined or lose their reputation. Automation is therefore a suitable solution for this part of the production chain. Quality assessment results are accurate and stable, and can be faster than a human," Brzobohatý explained.
The system, in cooperation with a robotic arm, can inspect parts from one millimeter to several meters in size, depending on the needs of the specific production plant. In addition, the data the device works with does not leave the factory, which increases the system's cyber security.
SANEZOO was founded seven years ago as a startup, and although the visual quality inspection device is already in operation with customers, it is still working to improve it. "Our goal is a so-called plug and play solution, i.e. to bring the device to the customer, turn it on and let it work without any further calibration or setup. To a large extent, it already works this way," Brzobohatý added.
This system still needs a certain amount of pre-production time to set up for a certain type of product, but the goal of further development is to make this setup unnecessary. Thus, a production company would not have to wait for the system to adapt to a new type of controlled item when changing product or evaluation parameters. The system will find defects on all types of surfaces made of different materials - from metal to plastic to glass.
