AI Viska

Our product, Visable, is a software platform that operates as a central interface for robot, camera, and image processing control. One of the main features of Visable is that it makes it simple for non-automation experts to leverage robotics with cameras to perform automated inspections on the manufacturing floor. However, the feasibility of Visable is truly underpinned by the advances in the use of AI to simplify the implementation of highly complex inspections. Before AI, this implementation would have had significant limitations – however with AI, we can automate the inspection process to produce human-like quality decisions.

The main target market for Visable is “low volume high variety” manufacturing companies and to date we have been successful in selling this solution to Fortune 100 companies in Ireland, UK, and USA, particularly in the heavy automotive sector. In the last 12 months Visable has performed in excess of 1.2 million inspections, with an accuracy in excess of 97.5%, in largely uncontrolled lighting environments.

Visable solves a problem for manufacturers that have a large variety of mechanical assembly configurations, making is easy to use a robot to capture and record images around the assembly, which can then be assessed for a quality metric. Visable integrates advanced CNN toolkits, such as Cognex Deep Learning AI, which is leveraged to enable the training of complex inspections with a limited number of sample images (somewhere between 30 and 50 typically), meaning it is now feasible for lower volume applications to achieve automated status.

Automated inspections in higher volume manufacturing environments are more readily configured as the system must normally deal with lower numbers of product variations. However Visable, with its application of AI, has opened up a significant
amount of new applications for low-to-medium volume manufacturers, and will help enable the next wave of manufacturing automation in Ireland and further afield.

While the core AI is a Cognex Deep Learning toolkit, Viska Systems has become expert at deploying such Deep Learning technologies in practical applications with high accuracy, ranging from Food & Beverage, Surgical and Implantable Medical devices, semiconductors, and automotive, which has lead to Viska being awarded as a Cognex Gold Partner for Deep Learning. Our customers have typically achieve a return on investment of 4 to 6 months on their installations of Visable powered with AI inspections, which is testament to the value we bring them with these AI solutions.