Hankook Tire Develops 'Automated Inspection System' Integrating AI and Digital Sensors

Computer Judges 'Unsuitable Elements' with New AI Technology-Based System

Hankook Tire & Technology Korea Technodome (Photo by Hankook Tire & Technology)

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Ji-hee] Hankook Tire & Technology announced on the 9th that it has developed an automated inspection system combining artificial intelligence (AI) technology and digital sensors, and will introduce it in the final tire inspection process.

The newly developed automated inspection system is applied to the "laser interferometer-based internal tire inspection," one of the final inspection processes. This procedure checks for the presence of air bubbles. In the existing inspection process, skilled experts identified nonconforming elements, but with the new AI-based automated system, computers can now interpret these.

In particular, since the size and shape of air bubbles that should be judged as nonconforming do not always appear consistently, image processing was difficult. However, by applying machine learning technology that enables the computer to learn independently and systematize nonconformance criteria, the system was completed. This achievement was made through collaboration with AI experts from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at KAIST.

Hankook Tire expects that once the automated system is fully applied, the consistency and efficiency of the inspection will be maximized. With reduced judgment time, equipment utilization rates are also expected to improve significantly. Hankook Tire plans to expand AI technology to X-Ray radiation inspections and external appearance inspections in the future.

Last year, Hankook Tire also succeeded in developing the 'VCD system,' a tire compound property prediction model using artificial intelligence. Building on the development of this automated inspection system, the company plans to expand the application of AI technology not only in development and inspection processes but also throughout the tire manufacturing process to efficiently produce high-quality products.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.