Edge Cloud based Visual Inspection for Automatic Quality Assurance in Production

In line with the current trend towards local, private 5G networks, private on-premise edge clouds are becoming increasingly important for real-time, secure, robust and low-latency communication in production plants. While this is a proven means for larger manufacturing companies to implement a private/proprietary, real-time capable communication and data processing infrastructure for their production facilities, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) cannot afford such infrastructures due to the high acquisition costs. Therefore, an off-premise edge cloud connected via a real-time communication network offers new, economically highly attractive possibilities, especially for manufacturing SMEs. In this work, we discuss the importance of edge clouds together with real-time and Time Sensitive Networks (TSN) for the realization of brand-new use-cases in industrial ecosystems. As a promising use-case for such an infrastructure, we present a remote quality assurance use-case in distributed production sites that can be realized with the powerful capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) combined with real-time video streaming systems and high-speed, low-latency communication networks. We present the requirements and describe the advantages brought about by edge clouds for such a use-case.