Uster bringing AI to fabric inspection

At the Textile & Garment Technology (ITMA) trade fair, which is being held June 8-14 in Milan, Italy, Uster Technologies is set to showcase its latest innovation in the area of fabric inspection: the Uster Fabriq Assistant. According to a press release from the Zurich-based firm, this is the central platform for the automated processing, analysis and visualization of quality data from Uster fabric inspection systems.

This data is “interpreted reliably” before being clearly presented in charts, histograms and development trends, as well as reporting functions. In this way, the depth of analysis goes far beyond what was previously only possible manually in Excel. Users looking for information on a specific roll of fabric, for example, can access the review dashboard in just a few clicks. This lists all the details about a particular roll, including defect images, defect maps, lists and roll statistics.

In the press release, Uster states that the most important module introduced with the Uster Fabriq Assistant is the artificial intelligence (AI) classification. This serves to expand the scope of the data generated by the automatic fabric inspection systems. With the introduction of machine learning technology, each image generated by the Uster Fabriq Vision and Uster Fabriq Vision N inspection products is automatically assigned a specific code.

In this way, textiles manufacturers could cut manual inspection times by 80 percent. Those interested in this innovation can drop by the Uster stand B103 in Hall 10 at the ITMA to discover in a fun way whether this is actually the case in reality. Visitors to the stand will have the opportunity to compete against Uster's AI, with the aim of trying to classify as many material defects as possible within a certain amount of time. ce/mm