Nissan makes use of AI to test for paint flaws

• Nissan has tapped AI to test for paint defects on new vehicles
• AI has improved paint defect detection by 7%, in accordance with Nissan
• Nissan stated AI is supposed to boost detection, not substitute people

Nissan is utilizing synthetic intelligence to assist spot paint imperfections on vehicles produced at its U.S. meeting vegetation.

About three years in the past, the automaker began utilizing the AI-based AUTIS Floor Verification System, which has improved the speed of defect detection on the Smyrna, Tennessee, plant by 7%, in accordance with Nissan. The system makes use of high-resolution cameras to take 15,000 footage of every automobile because it exits the paint sales space. These footage are then analyzed by AI software program to search out flaws within the paint.

“The human eye can spot 85%-95% of flaws, however AUTIS identifies over 98%,” Travis Fritsche, a Nissan paint course of engineer, stated in an announcement. Technicians nonetheless confirm potential paint defects flagged by the system utilizing displays and devoted, wrist-worn firm smartphones. However the AI help reduces eye fatigue and permits for extra time to appropriate paint points, in accordance with Nissan.

“Technicians are important for confirming and categorizing defects,” Nissan new mannequin paint engineer Rod Lynch stated in an announcement. “AUTIS is a software to boost their work, not substitute it.”

The paint-inspection course of was additionally partially automated to start with. Nissan started utilizing laser-equipped robots to scan for paint defects in 1985. These first robots might determine paint flaws as small as 0.3 mm in 45 seconds, whereas the AUTIS system can determine flaws simply 0.2 millimeters in measurement in lower than half that point, in accordance with Nissan.

The AI-based system additionally builds a library of confirmed defects that it may possibly use for future reference to enhance its personal efficiency, Nissan claims, including that this similar library could be studied by engineers to deal with any points with paint processes for particular autos and colours.

AUTIS has up to now evaluated over 500,000 autos on the Smyrna plant, in accordance with Nissan. That plant has an annual manufacturing of over 640,000 autos, in accordance with a 2022 reality sheet. The identical paint-flaw detection system can be used at vegetation in Canton, Mississippi, and Aguascalientes, Mexico. These three vegetation assemble most of Nissan’s present lineup, together with the Altima, Frontier, Kicks, Leaf, Murano, Pathfinder, Rogue, Sentra, and Versa.

Different automakers are additionally experimenting with AI, however primarily by working so as to add standard AI software program to infotainment methods. The 2025 Volkswagen Golf integrates OpenAI’s ChatGPT with its voice assistant, and sibling model Audi is slated to observe go well with. Mercedes-Benz in 2023 introduced what it referred to as a beta program for ChatGPT integration, and introduced at CES earlier this yr it was readying an AI-powered next-generation person interface.