In India, deep tech startups are just beginning to tackle specific problems of manufacturing, with the application of AI
Illustration: Sameer Pawar
Manufacturing is an area where digitalisation is making deep inroads. Concepts such as ‘digital twins’ are becoming popular, helping companies make digital replicas of complex products and their manufacturing processes—this allows for faster and cheaper tests for potential problems in both the processes and the products.
In India, deep tech startups are just beginning to tackle specific problems of manufacturing, with the application of AI. One such startup is Vyuti Systems, where Gokul NA and Nikhil Ramaswamy are building an intelligent camera module—under their brand CynLr—that might eventually help manufacturers retrain robotic arms to be more flexible.
Computer vision is a relatively new area, the duo says, whereas the mechanical aspects of robotics are 150 years old. Intelligent camera systems can bring manufacturers closer to removing the limitation of locking in the arms to making specific products.
Unlike human workers who can go from one factory to another, make different product and retrain in a couple of weeks, “if you are a cell phone factory, you can’t even make a mouse,” says Gokul.
This is despite the fact that robotic arms do the same kind of movements irrespective of the product. An AI-based computer vision module could be an important step closer to being able to use the same arms to make different products. This is because every task of the arm boils down to picking, orienting and placing, at the most basic level.
(This story appears in the 13 August, 2021 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)