There are two key things manufacturers value when seeking automated inspection applications: how much improvement it can provide over manual inspection, and the speed with which it can operate while maintaining effectiveness. In terms of accuracy, factors such as personnel fatigue, the level of experience of the workforce, and the complexity of the product being manufactured all influence the rates of human error in the manual inspection process.
With respect to the second factor, personnel must take the time to ascertain whether a product sample conforms to the required quality standards and is free of defects. An obvious consequence of this is the investment of both time and labor necessary to maintain quality levels throughout the production cycle.
The UP Xtreme i12: Assuring Quality Through Versatility
Comprehensive Visual Coverage
When searching for a product to power their quality inspection application, the company had a number of requirements. The first of these was the product’s ability to support multiple cameras, as the system needed to capture visual data of the article being inspected from multiple different angles to ensure comprehensive coverage.
Equipped with a broad selection of USB interfaces, including three Type-A ports operating at USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds and a USB 4.0 Type-C port, the UP Xtreme i12 was more than capable of fulfilling this requirement.
Advanced Processing with Intel Iris Xe Graphics
A second reason the client chose the UP Xtreme i12 was its 12th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 CPU, the hybrid architecture of which was ideally suited to the application. With four performance cores optimized for the rapid analysis of visual datasets and eight efficiency cores designed to efficiently manage background processes, the UP Xtreme i12's CPU offered the ideal blend of raw processing power and efficient operation for high-performance, low-latency tasks.
An additional benefit of the board’s processor platform was its integrated Intel® Iris® Xe graphics. Its accelerated encoding and decoding capabilities facilitated the real-time management of multiple video and image data streams from the cameras installed on the board. Furthermore, the Intel® Iris® Xe graphics package enhance the application with high-quality video rendering, delivering clearer images for detailed visual inspection.
Power-Efficient AI Acceleration
The UP Xtreme i12's expansion options were arguably its most significant benefit. With two M.2 2280 M-Key slots (PCIe Gen 4.0 x4), the board could accommodate two Hailo-8™ AI acceleration modules, delivering a combined 52 TOPS of AI performance.
The integration of these modules meant the application could run advanced AI models built using a variety of development frameworks. The integrated software toolset of the Hailo-8™ modules also allowed for the training, retraining, optimization, and translation of algorithms developed using various machine learning frameworks, a benefit when considering the application would be tailored for different companies producing different types of goods for end customers.
Application Architecture