Even though the Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) has shown superior results in the field of computer vision, it is still a challenging task to implement computer vision algorithms in real-time at the edge, especially using a low-cost IoT device due to high memory consumption and computation complexities in a CNN. Network compression methodologies such as weight pruning, filter pruning, and quantization are used to overcome the above mentioned problem. Even though filter pruning methodology has shown better performances compared to other techniques, irregularity of the number of filters pruned across different layers of a CNN might not comply with majority of the neural computing hardware architectures. In this paper, a novel greedy approach called cluster pruning has been proposed, which provides a structured way of removing filters in a CNN by considering the importance of filters and the underlying hardware architecture. The proposed methodology is compared with the conventional filter pruning algorithm on Pascal-VOC open dataset, and Head-Counting dataset, which is our own dataset developed to detect and count people entering a room. We benchmark our proposed method on three hardware architectures, namely CPU, GPU, and Intel Movidius Neural Computer Stick (NCS) using the popular SSD-MobileNet and SSD-SqueezeNet neural network architectures used for edge-AI vision applications. Results demonstrate that our method outperforms the conventional filter pruning methodology, using both datasets on above mentioned hardware architectures. Furthermore, a low cost IoT hardware setup consisting of an Intel Movidius-NCS is proposed to deploy an edge-AI application using our proposed pruning methodology.

With the improvement of electronic circuit production methods, such as reduction of component size and the increase of component density, the risk of defects is increasing in the production line. Many techniques have been incorporated to check for failed solder joints, such as X-ray imaging, optical imaging and thermal imaging, among which X-ray imaging can inspect external and internal defects. However, some advanced algorithms are not accurate enough to meet the requirements of quality control. A lot of manual inspection is required that increases the specialist workload. In addition, automatic X-ray inspection could produce incorrect region of interests that deteriorates the defect detection. The high-dimensionality of X-ray images and changes in image size also pose challenges to detection algorithms. Recently, the latest advances in deep learning provide inspiration for image-based tasks and are competitive with human level. In this work, deep learning is introduced in the inspection for quality control. Four joint defect detection models based on artificial intelligence are proposed and compared. The noisy ROI and the change of image dimension problems are addressed. The effectiveness of the proposed models is verified by experiments on real-world 3D X-ray dataset, which saves the specialist inspection workload greatly.

Quality control is of vital importance during electronics production. As the methods of producing electronic circuits improve, there is an increasing chance of solder defects during assembling the printed circuit board (PCB). Many technologies have been incorporated for inspecting failed soldering, such as X-ray imaging, optical imaging, and thermal imaging. With some advanced algorithms, the new technologies are expected to control the production quality based on the digital images. However, current algorithms sometimes are not accurate enough to meet the quality control. Specialists are needed to do a follow-up checking. For automated X-ray inspection, joint of interest on the X-ray image is located by region of interest (ROI) and inspected by some algorithms. Some incorrect ROIs deteriorate the inspection algorithm.The high dimension of X-ray images and the varying sizes of image dimensions also challenge the inspection algorithms. On the other hand, recent advances on deep learning shed light on image-based tasks and are competitive to human levels.In this paper, deep learning is incorporated in X-ray imaging based quality control during PCB quality inspection. Two artificial intelligence (AI) based models are proposed and compared for joint defect detection.The noised ROI problem and the varying sizes of imaging dimension problem are addressed. The efficacy of the proposed methods are verified through experimenting on a real-world 3D X-ray dataset. By incorporating the proposed methods, specialist inspection workload is largely saved.

Reed relay serves as the fundamental component of functional testing, which closely relates to the successful quality inspection of electronics. To provide accurate remaining useful life (RUL) estimation for reed relay, a hybrid deep learning network with degradation pattern clustering is proposed based on the following three considerations. First, multiple degradation behaviors are observed for reed relay, and hence a dynamic time wrapping-based K-means clustering is offered to distinguish degradation patterns from each other. Second, although proper selections of features are of great significance, few studies are available to guide the selection. The proposed method recommends operational rules for easy implementation purposes. Third, a neural network for remaining useful life estimation (RULNet) is proposed to address the weakness of the convolutional neural network (CNN) in capturing temporal information of sequential data, which incorporates temporal correlation ability after high-level feature representation of convolutional operation. In this way, three variants of RULNet are constructed with health indicators, features with self-organizing map, or features with curve fitting. Ultimately, the proposed hybrid model is compared with the typical baseline models, including CNN and long short-term memory network (LSTM), through a practical reed relay dataset with two distinct degradation manners. The results from both degradation cases demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms CNN and LSTM regarding the index root mean squared error.

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