We investigate the challenges of building an end-to-end cloud pipeline for real-time intelligent visual inspection system for use in automotive manufacturing. Current methods of visual detection in automotive assembly are highly labor intensive, and thus prone to errors. An automated process is sought that can operate within the real-time constraints of the assembly line and can reduce errors. Components of the cloud pipeline include capture of a large set of high-definition images from a camera setup at the assembly location, transfer and storage of the images as needed, execution of object detection, and notification to a human operator when a fault is detected. The end-to-end execution must complete within a fixed time frame before the next car arrives in the assembly line. In this article, we report the design, development, and experimental evaluation of the tradeoffs of performance, accuracy, and scalability for a cloud system.
K E Y W O R D Scloud, end-to-end pipeline, latency, real-time system, visual inspection
INTRODUCTIONMachine learning has proven to be highly effective in providing solutions to wide variety of challenging problems in several domains. In the automotive domain, machine learning and deep learning have several potential applications both inside and outside the vehicle. 1 Advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) and system for self-driving cars operate within the vehicle while systems outside the vehicle indulge in the manufacturing assembly plant systems. 2 Building an end-to-end system pipeline that facilitates continuous delivery requires careful consideration of various tradeoffs. The pipeline should be responsive, scalable for different workloads, fault tolerant, replicable, and cost-effective. Much research lately focuses on optimization of machine learning algorithms, developing frameworks for these algorithms, analyzing the tradeoffs of various parameters associated with these models, or developing a pipeline or system architecture for automatically deploying the infrastructure. The last two topics are main focus of this research. Our work focuses on the end-to-end system architecture for visual inspection using an Amazon Web Services (AWS) implementation. We study various tradeoffs associated with the object detection models using high-definition images. We also discuss interesting use cases for implementation tradeoffs when considering the latency and cost for the end-to-end visual inspection pipeline.
868Visual inspection in the automotive manufacturing is a highly labor intensive and slow process. The quality checks in automotive manufacturing plant involve high-quality visual inspection to ensure that the parts are in the correct locations, have the right shape, that the product does not have any missing parts, and that the automobile is free from scratches, dents, or blemishes. Visual inspection can be facilitated through the use of deep learning models that are deployed on the cloud. Models that are connected to a set of high-definition cameras located at the assembly stat...