These processes are complex and slow to adapt to the change required to bring about energy efficiencies required to meet their contribution to the Government’s net-zero target.

Traditional industries use a great deal of energy during production and all of the processes are prone to incurring defects within the final products which historically cannot be detected until the material is in its final and completed phases. As such, testing methods are usually destructive, resulting in unnecessary waste, and where defects are found, required a significant amount of energy to reprocess the material. Currently, the so-called ‘Foundation Industries’: Metal, Glass, Paper, Ceramics, Cement, and Bulk Chemicals, are responsible for 10% of the UK’s total carbon emissions. These industries also have challenges to overcome when it comes to changing processes and historically, have been slow to adapt to and incorporate new technologies.

i3Dr is designing intelligent vision systems incorporating stereo vision cameras, stereo matching algorithms, and machine learning to identify, characterise and position within a 3D context, defects in materials during the manufacturing process.

Through Innovate UK, the UK’s national innovation agency, i3Dr is developing intelligent vision systems to enable defect detection without the requirement for destructive testing methods, and prior to the materials requiring intensive energy input for reworking. This enables the industries to become more streamlined, reducing waste, reducing energy input requirements, and reducing carbon emissions in the process.