Dongsheng Intelligent Technology: "hard" innovation + "soft" integration to create an industrial visual tool

There was such a story: a Chinese machine tool company boss went to a German machine tool company to investigate and found a strange phenomenon. When the grinder produced by the Chinese machine tool company is used by the German machine tool company, its value doubles geometrically. . The reason is that the German company replaced the core controller in the Chinese company's grinding machine, which doubled the value of the software.

"It's very simple, hardware provides basic value and produces common products; software provides core value and produces customized products. Software is the 'brain' of the industry." Dongsheng Intelligent Technology CEO Han Xu was interviewed by CEConlines Shi said that domestic industrial software should be self-improving. Industrial software is not ideal, which brings "growing pains" to intelligent manufacturing. When many people are still addicted to the industrial Internet, artificial intelligence, and big data to promote the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, few people realize that if these concepts are stripped of layers of clothes, the core is industrial software.

"We understand industry, and it just so happens that all of us have studied industry and computer software, and our ability is not bad. So, we have a dream: in industrial software, especially It is in AI industrial vision software that we can make products that we are proud of." Han Xu said to the CEConline.

In the early spring of 2020, a sudden epidemic disrupted the planning and production of various industries. And this epidemic also touched Han Xu's thinking: technology can change life, how can AI change industry? Han Xu said earnestly to the world's managers: "The efficiency of AI in industry is much higher than other industries, and it is a real change and improvement. After this epidemic, we found that AI and industrial automation are deeply integrated. , which is urgently needed by the Chinese manufacturing industry. If lights-out factories or automated factories are truly realized, and the production stagnation of a large number of enterprises caused by the epidemic, will the difficulty of resumption of work be greatly alleviated?”

Technology Change life, AI changes industry

Han Xu is very optimistic about the AI industrial vision market. According to public data, as early as 2018, the global market size of machine vision technology for industrial automation reached US$4.44 billion, and it is expected to reach US$12.29 billion in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 21%. This further strengthened his confidence in starting a business.

Han Xu graduated from Seoul National University, majoring in computer science. He has worked as a R&D engineer in Hyundai Heavy Industries Group and has many years of entrepreneurial experience. In July 2019, Han Xu founded Dongsheng Intelligent Technology in Suzhou Industrial Park with the characteristics of artificial intelligence, which means "the voice from the east".

Dongsheng Intelligent has made great efforts at the beginning of its establishment. On the basis of maintaining the leading position of the production line application rate, market share and accuracy in the field of artificial intelligence defect detection, Dongsheng Intelligent's core technology, HaddleAI The detection software has also achieved stable commercial use and has become a star product in the field of AI industrial vision. It is understood that Dongsheng Intelligence takes industrial vision and artificial intelligence algorithms as the core, combines image information, sound information, and digital information with multi-dimensional integrated analysis, focusing on the development and deployment of solutions for artificial intelligence and big data analysis in the industrial field. Han Xu mentioned that the reason why the company's initial research and development direction is set here is because they clearly recognize the huge base of industrial employees and the existence of tedious and heavy repetitive pipeline work, which is not only a huge burden for the company but also makes the production line difficult. Many workers are suffering, and these are what AI can do to liberate labor and create value. He believes that using AI to solve tedious human labor is a long way to go.

As an innovative enterprise, Dongsheng Intelligent focuses on talents on one hand and innovation on the other. Adhering to the people-oriented development strategy, Han Xu's team has continued to grow, attracting many outstanding talents from the fields of artificial intelligence, machine vision, data analysis and industrial manufacturing. It is reported that the core technicians of Dongsheng Intelligence generally graduated from the world's top 50 schools and domestic 985 and 211 universities, as well as professionals from the manufacturing, artificial intelligence and other sub-fields and the world's top 500 companies.

"The core competitiveness of Dongsheng Intelligence is 'fast' and 'accuracy' (accuracy is both ability and quality)." A person's martial arts level depends on "hand, eye, body and footwork". To become a leader in the field of intelligent manufacturing where experts gather, the level of "eyesight" and "skills" is the core of the core. In this regard, Han Xu explained to the CEConline: "Dongsheng Intelligence has a mature HandddleAI (2D+3D) general product in machine vision, which can be directly used for image defect detection, and can provide soft and hard solutions at the same time. (Including optical systems and customized demand development algorithms); in terms of acoustic recognition, it can provide detection and classification of product defects, real-time operating status of industrial equipment, health indicators of each component, and early warning of emergencies in factories. Through 'eyes' (industrial camera layout), 'ear' (sound sensor layout) accumulated industry big data, and the organic integration of 'brain' world-leading algorithm capabilities and computing power, thus promoting the transformation and upgrading of the entire industry." According to Han Xu, future Industrial production will be based on "intelligent eyes", equipped on thousands of devices of all kinds, commanding various "hands, feet, and body" movements to achieve "depth perception, intelligent decision-making, and automatic execution", Become "Homo sapiens", let automation and intelligent manufacturing take off!

For example: the vision system basically covers the full spectrum, the resolution can reach 1 micron, and the speed can reach hundreds of millions of frames per second, which greatly exceeds the current industrial manufacturing level in terms of speed and precision, and even meets the For a long time in the future, more precise and high-speed manufacturing requirements can fully guarantee the fast and accurate information acquisition in industrial manufacturing. On the other hand, the rapid development of image technology has enabled massive image information to be analyzed and utilized in a high-speed, real-time, and intelligent manner. and quasi.

"Two-eight rules", hand over the most difficult problems to us

China's machine vision pioneers are actively expanding in a relatively small space, accumulating energy, accumulating a considerable number of talents, Technology and management experience, such as imaging, lighting, software algorithms and other high-end technologies are basically the same or have a small gap with foreign countries, and some products even surpass foreign products in terms of performance and technological innovation.

"Our innovation comes from the needs of customers and the industry. Overcoming the most difficult projects is a challenge." In Han Xu's view, many existing products can only solve 80% of the problems, and the remaining 20 %'s questions are usually the ones that concern him the most. Overcoming the problems that plague customers will deepen Dongsheng Intelligent's comprehensive understanding of the industry and production and the integration of multiple types of technologies. "To solve these 20% problems, we need to customize the algorithm and function, and then turn it into a standardized product." The technical team assists the optimization of the algorithm and the complement of functions by actually solving the customer's problems to enhance the strength of the team. Talking about this, Han Xu was still not finished, and added: "As we solve more and more problems at the industrial level, the functions will become more and more powerful, and the distance from others will become longer and longer, and the technical barriers will be reduced. It will get thicker and thicker."

"My engineer and I often have to go deep into the manufacturing site. It takes ten days and a half to stay in the factory, which is actually quite hard." Han Xu has his own considerations: only with the workers Only by understanding the operation of the workshop in the production line and in-depth understanding of the needs of the products in the industry can real innovation come out.

In today's technology-driven market, it is particularly important to bring tangible cost reductions to customers.

Industry is very disciplined, which means that customers' pain points have to be found and worked out. Small sample training, generalization ability, absolute accuracy, and deployment ability are all key points. Han Xu told the CEConline a story of his experience. Not long ago, when upgrading the production line for a domestic monocrystalline silicon giant, it was not smooth at first. Due to the large number of customer orders and the heavy workload, the production line workers were not very cooperative when they were busy. However, the upgraded production line has an obvious improvement effect. As a result, customers have tried to see the effect is good, and then took the initiative to find Dongsheng Intelligent to fully upgrade the production line, from a production line to a workshop to a production base. "For the customer, it helps him solve practical problems, improves productivity and efficiency, and then the workers are very happy. This is a sense of joy after creation."

Han Xu said that artificial intelligence has It is a tool, but many people didn't know how to use it before. When more and more people know how to use it, you will find that artificial intelligence will be integrated into every detail of intelligent manufacturing. Looking at the world, the era of artificial intelligence-enabled manufacturing has arrived. Vision inspection with AI-based capabilities will shine.

"AI + manufacturing", the future is beyond your imagination

Pan Yunhe, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, believes: "Many artificial intelligence scientists have realized that the best method is not to use computers to simulate people All intelligence, but to combine the intelligence that computers are best at and the intelligence that people are best at to form a human-machine integrated intelligent system to serve human beings." "AI + manufacturing" has huge development potential, is intelligent manufacturing, industrial Upgraded main battlefield.

Han Xu also gave his own answer to how to push the industry to enter the AI era faster: "'AI+manufacturing' does not pursue simple and rude machines, but rather It is necessary to return to the 'people-oriented' model concept, let machines and people do what they are better at, machines take on more repetitive, boring and dangerous jobs, and humans take on more creative jobs."

Han Xu always believes that industry is inherently a business that cannot be fast. The future of the industry can only be achieved by taking every step of the process and the persistence of every participant.

Regarding the future, Han Xu described his blueprint to the CEConlines: to break through image processing, defect detection, sound detection, 3D detection, multi-dimensional data acquisition, comprehensive data analysis, etc. one by one. Then gradually form a line from points to form a product quality traceability management system with quality control as the core based on digital signals and image signals, combined with industrial manufacturing technology and rich production line experience. Finally, with the collection and enrichment of various data, as well as the data analysis and understanding of all aspects of the entire product, it gradually expands from the line to the surface, and slowly penetrates to solve various industrial-related problems required by the entire factory, becoming a multi-dimensional Data-based smart factory solutions with artificial intelligence and data mining algorithms as the core.

With the continuous improvement of algorithms and computing power, machine vision is continuously penetrating into a wider range of industries, driving the intelligent development of domestic industrial manufacturing, and the business opportunities of machine vision will also open up the transformation and development of Chinese manufacturers. new door.

As Han Xu said: "Industry is the foundation of the country. The development and transformation of industry can drive the progress and development of the entire society. The application and deployment of technology in industry will certainly be promising!"