Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies

Centre of Excellence for Advance Manufacturing Technology develops grounding projects in AI – iWeld & iToFD

IIT Kharagpur has proven its Tryst with Innovation with its latest dominant supremacy in the field of Artificial Intelligence with two of its ground breaking projects on AI-enabled non-destructive testing for weld defect analysis, from Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology (CoEAMT), IIT Kharagpur led by Prof. Surjya K Pal, Chairperson, Centre of Excellence in Advance Manufacturing. These two innovative solutions have been shortlisted by TATA STEEL for “TechEx 2024” exhibition.

The first, “iWeld, an AI-enabled NDT” software is an innovative solution developed for Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE) Kolkata, Ministry of Defence. iWeld is designed to identify, localize and classify different types of weld defects, such as blowhole, wormhole, porosity, lack of fusion, and inclusion, from radiography images with remarkable accuracy. The performance of the iWeld has been certified by the Indian Register of Shipping (No.: 2023PC001, Dated: 9^th Aug 2023). This was also recently shortlisted as one of the four innovations from IIT Kharagpur which were showcased at “IInventiv 2024” – the first-of-its-kind, mega R&D fair, where all IITs, NITs and other top Institutions in the country participated to show case the their cutting-edge innovations in R&D.

The ability of iWeld to enhance the quality and efficiency of weld inspections has marked it as a truly successful product, standing as a testament to successful collaboration between CoEAMT and GRSE. Jointly copyrighted with GRSE, iWeld is now primed for commercialization. Mr. Avishek Mukherjee, a Doctoral Scholar in Advanced Technology Development Centre, has devoted considerable effort and dedication to bring about this development.

“Recently, this has also been selected and showcased by the mega technical Event, IInventiv 2024, organised by MoE at IIT Hyderabad. This software is already certified by Indian Register of Shipping, and has been handed over to GRSE for daily operational usage with human-like accuracy. This software has been jointly copyrighted with GRSE as well. It is a product with TRL:8/9. GRSE and CoEAMT will now jointly go ahead for commercialization at other industrial ends. AI-enabled NDT for auto evaluation of weld defects from Ultrasound data: This project is being funded by TIH. It has already been filed for patent. A group of students at CoEAMT are planning to spin-off soon with these AI-enabled NDT solutions for weld defect analyses. Our students are doing wonderful job. Their success for solving perennial industrial problems is awesome. The credit goes to the interns and scholars,” said Prof. S K Pal, Chairperson, CoEAMT.

The second solution, “iToFD“, under a project funded by (TiH) of IIT Kharagpur, revolutionizes the detection and sizing of weld defects using ultrasonic time-of-flight diffraction (ToFD) data. This cutting-edge system integrates advanced signal processing with AI algorithms for precise defect localization and measurement. This automated solution, patented recently (Patent filed ref no: 202331060331), is nearly 15 times faster than traditional manual inspections. Mr. A K Vishwanathan, Undergraduate student in Chemistry; Mr. Sarvan Kumar Singh, Undergraduate student in Chemical Engineering; Mr. Ananta Dutta, Doctoral Scholar in Mechanical Engineering, and Mr. Avishek Mukherjee, Doctoral Scholar in Advanced Technology Development Centre are diligently contributing to this project.

“The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur is geared up in solving various perennial problems of the industries through deployment of artificial intelligence, and Industry 4.0 concepts. I am extremely happy to see the passion of students associated with the CoEAMT while working with the industries, at this stage of their lives, providing innovative solutions. They shine with a profound grasp of industrial challenges. CoEAMT is open to induct more students and train them to take up interesting and challenging industrial problems, and solve them,” added Prof. Pal.

Inputs by: Prof. Surjya K Pal, Chairperson, Centre of Excellence in Advance Manufacturing Technology
Email: surjya.pal@icloud.com

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AI in Manufacturing

Pandemic has hit us hard and has reset the entire manufacturing lookout. Thinking in the positive aspect, the pandemic has given us a chance to grow stronger, more resilient, and resourceful in terms of operation, maintenance, and sustainability. There was a point in time when people were perceiving Industry 4.0 as an opportunity for their businesses. The table has turned, and now, Industry 4.0 is a mandate as the concepts under its umbrella are the ones that will help in making manufacturing more resilient, stronger, and resourceful. AI is one of the core elements of Industry 4.0 and it encompasses machine learning, deep learning, and classical AI techniques.

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, led by Professor Surjya K Pal, has been very proactive in this context from its inception. They have come up with a low-cost AI-based solution for product quality inspection. Professor Pal mentioned that they strived hard to make it low-cost so that it can be leveraged by the MSMEs. This sector is the “Engines of Growth”, and they need low-cost and effective solutions to energize their production scenarios. The solution incorporates a low-cost webcam for capturing images of the product; the quality of which is enhanced in real-time via AI techniques followed by machine vision analyses to inspect the dimensional features and presence of scratches and dents. The Centre has also developed an Industry 4.0 solution for real-time monitoring and control of weld quality, which has been filed as a patent, jointly with TCS. They have also developed an ML-based predictive maintenance software for complete diagnostics of the machine elements. This has been developed jointly with Tata Metaliks and Tata Sons.

Very recently, Professor Pal delivered a lecture on “AI in Manufacturing” to NIT Sikkim, where he mentioned that manufacturing is having a huge potential for implementing AI techniques. Robots and human working together on a job, sensor-driven real-time control of processes, AR/VR for operation and maintenance, etc. are the new paradigms, which the manufacturing industries are looking forward to. He also mentioned about customized training programme on “AI in manufacturing”, which they have been working on jointly with the Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence.

Saturday Manufacturing Talks by CoE in Advanced Manufacturing Technology

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology of IIT Kharagpur is conducting a mega event titled “SATURDAY MANUFACTURING TALKS”.

Join Online Every Saturday, from 8:30 to 9:30 pm IST
https://iitkharagpur.webex.com/iitkharagpur/j.php?MTID=m00ba321c9f62cf6aeb29a33edab1b210

It is planned to be a year-long series of webinars on topics of advanced manufacturing. It will stress the need for an industry-academia collaboration perspective.

The topics include but not limited to :
– Robotics, Automation, and Use of AI and ML in manufacturing
– Simulation in manufacturing
– Specialty materials in manufacturing
– Additive manufacturing
– AI in Supply Chain
– Design of Experiments in engineering

Watch Video for insights of Industry 4.0 related work at Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, IIT Kharagpur

A few highlights of the event are as follows:
– Webinars will be delivered by both academicians and industry professionals – this will help in broadening the reach and outlook
– Speakers would be Alumni of IIT Kharagpur in academics and industry (India and Abroad) – this will help in understanding the research being conducted globally on advanced manufacturing

For more information please visit: https://www.coeamt.com/index.php or write to coeamt@iitkgp.ac.in

New Algorithm to Augment Industrial Profitability

IIT Kharagpur – Tata Metaliks Jointly Develop Industry 4.0 Algorithm to Change Profitability Scenario of India’s Manufacturing Sector

Researchers at the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, IIT Kharagpur have developed a predictive maintenance algorithm to improve the profitability of production jobs through substantial savings in Productivity, Downtime, Cost and Manpower. The data-driven predictive maintenance module has been successfully tested by Tata Metaliks for user-level acceptance.

The algorithm has been developed at the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, by a team led by Prof Akhilesh Kumar, Associate Professor, Dept. of Industrial Systems Engineering. Deployed on a gearbox of Annealing Furnace, the algorithm was tested for its ability to cluster various operating modes of the gearbox and outliers, adaptability to recognize new operating modes and predict impending failures, threshold flags for anomaly detection as well as tracking health state of the industrial assets.

Prof. Kumar said, “My goal was to develop generic diagnostic and prognostic algorithms that are rapidly configurable, and adaptive to facilitate effective and efficient large-scale deployment of Predictive Maintenance 4.0 (PdM4.0) technology for a wide variety of equipment/assets”.

Tata Metaliks has projected that the algorithm would have the potential for great savings from a predictive maintenance perspective. Based on various performance measures, an indirect increase in productivity was estimated to be ₹1 crore annually along with a direct decrease in (i) annual downtime by 40-hours, (ii) annual manpower requirement by 400 hours and (iii) cost by ₹8 Lakh. Tata Metaliks has developed a graphic user interface to display and retrieve the algorithmic data computation.

Dr. Purnendu Sinha, Technology leader-IoT & Analytics, Group Technology & Innovation Office, Tata Group, one of the collaborators on this project, strongly believes that such an initiative will enable the widespread acceptance of Industry 4.0 as a data-driven paradigm.

Mr. Mohit Kale, General Manager (Engineering Services), Tata Metaliks said “In the era of the fourth industrial revolution, it is undeniable that the industrial community is looking for better Proof-of-Concept to embrace IoT based applications, and this project builds such confidence”.

Tata Sons along with IIT Kharagpur hold the licensing rights for this algorithm.

“As India is determined to achieve the goal of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, we must bridge the gap from lab to land by means of translational research. Academic research which can be directly tested by industries will not only improve the commercialization prospect but it will transform our centres of excellence as hotbeds of industrial innovations. This is the vision with which the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies was set up by the Dept. of Heavy Industries, Govt. of India and a consortium of six industries and I am glad it is living upto the expectations,” opined Prof. Virendra K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

Prof. Surjya K Pal who is heading the Centre called the development a great success of the industry-academia collaborative platform.

“This is another significant milestone in our goal to deliver Industrial IoT innovations to India’s manufacturing sector thus graduating it to Industry 4.0. The industrial collaborations make it possible to progress through the technology readiness levels and design systems which can be adopted by the industries,” he said.

About Center of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, IIT Kharagpur

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology was set up at IIT Kharagpur under the patronage of the Department of Heavy Industry of Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India and a consortium of six industry members. The Centre aims to stimulate innovation to manufacture smart machines in the capital goods sector. This centre offers a unique platform for innovative and top-quality research focused on the industries on Specialty materials, Design and automation, Additive manufacturing, and Digital Manufacturing and Industrial Internet of Things. The centre will boost innovative interventions and collaborative research in the advanced manufacturing domain by enabling an ecosystem among Institutes of higher repute, heavy industries, and also the MSMEs and start-ups.

Contact:

Project: Prof. Surjya K Pal, skpal@mech.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Coverage:

India Today

DataQuest

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