Detection of defective textile production

Project Information

SMARTEX

Grant agreement ID: 946915

DOI

10.3030/946915

Project closed

EC signature date 17 March 2020

Start date 1 February 2020

End date 30 September 2021

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 1 464 375,00

EU contribution

€ 1 025 062,50

Coordinated by

SMARTEX UNIPESSOAL LDA
Portugal

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SMARTEX (Detection of defective textile production)

Reporting period: 2021-02-01 to 2021-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Smartex is leading the way in reducing the circular knitting textiles defective production to close to 0%. Using cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence technology, Machine Learning and Computer Vision, Smartex is able to detect defects and intervening the machines during the production stage avoiding the defective production to go unnoticed through the supply chain resulting in a waste of resources and high costs.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In general, this project is being successfully accomplished and the EIC H2020 grant participation has demonstrated to be an ​essential instrument to the company, especially during the hard economic times worldwide. The 1st grant tranche is being used on fundamental resources for the development of Smartex technologies, and it has a direct impact on the management decisions of hiring engineers, developing the only product the company has, preparing pilots and production lines.

Regarding financial aspects, the current project is generally going as planned except regarding the travel costs that were extremely affected by the current 2020 Pandemic situation. This might imply slight adjustments in other types of costs since it has a direct impact on the Engineering & Product Development activities, especially for Hardware development which is extremely dependent on physical visits and installations on real textile factories.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The Smartex pilots developed and manufactured under this project scope, are daily creating impact in textile factories.
Since October 2020, the Smartex devices created a financial benefit of over 27 000€ (by saving raw material), 600 000 Liters of water by avoiding the defective fabrics to proceed after the knitting stage, 48 500 kWh of energy and 12 000 Kg of CO2.

Smartex cameras installed and images of small defects being detected