[Digital Today reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] AI vision recognition company AIMatics said on Oct. 26 it will automate factory inspection and process operations with industry-specific AI validated in vehicles, as it moves to implement an 'autonomous factory' in which AI independently recognizes and judges on-site conditions and executes tasks.

According to the company, AIMatics developed its own AI engine, aimNet, which detects driver drowsiness and mobile phone use in real time, and installed it in more than 520,000 vehicles. It also applied its lightweight AI technology, optimized to run inside vehicles, to factory inspection equipment.

Its AI visual inspection equipment, AIM-T1, supports faster responses across various manufacturing environments even with a small amount of training data.

While existing visual inspection technology took 1 to 2 days to train on large volumes of data, AIM-T1 targets completion within 1 hour from training to on-site deployment.

AIMatics also supplies IOPM, an intelligent integrated process operations platform that monitors manufacturing processes in real time. When AIM-T1 inspection results are linked with IOPM, on-site managers can immediately check the process where defects occurred. The company is also strengthening IOPM functions that analyze inspection data together with production and equipment data to optimize process operations.

AIMatics said it established a local subsidiary in Bac Ninh province, Vietnam in June and assembled and produced equipment locally, shortening customers' payback period for equipment investment to within 2 years. It also said it will enter North American markets, including Canada and Mexico, in the second half of next year, using Vietnam as a production base.

Chief Executive Hoon Lee (이훈) said manufacturing-site AX is completed through autonomous operation that starts with inspections to detect defects and abnormalities and leads to judgment and execution. He said the company will secure by 2028 a world model that understands industrial sites on its own by combining AI technology proven in vehicles with factory-site data.