Nissan's Paint Booth Gets A Boost from AI
Automakers are working hard to jam artificial intelligence features into new vehicles, but most of the technology feels kind of creepy at this point. Despite that trend, Nissan has figured out a way to use AI that is actually helpful and not as frightening as a full-fledged robot assistant in your car.
Nissan has been using a technology called the AUTIS Surface Verification System for the last three years, which the automaker said had boosted its defect detection by seven percent. It snaps thousands of photos of every vehicle exiting the paint room and analyzes them using AI.
Nissan paint process engineer Travis Fritsche said, “The human eye can spot 85%-95% of flaws, but AUTIS identifies over 98%.” The automaker still employs humans to flag defects, but the AI system will reduce eye fatigue and give more time for paint correction.
The company has used defect-detecting robots since the mid-1980s, but AUTIS can identify smaller flaws in less than half the time the old systems took. It also learns over time, creating a database of the flaws it’s analyzed to improve performance. AUTIS has analyzed more than half a million vehicles at Nissan’s Smyrna, TN plant, and the company said it uses the technology in other facilities, including Canton, MS, and Mexico.
[Images: Nissan]
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Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.
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