Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TULIPZ (The world’s first Terahertz application for Inspection-As-A-Service: Ensure quality and reduce waste in industrial production through inline inspection)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-01-01 bis 2022-07-31
The EIC Accelerator-funded the TULIPZ project aimed at helping TiHive becoming a reference in the industrial inspection landscape, through the development and industrialisation of TiHive camera systems and AI. TULIPZ also supported the trial of our Inspection as a Service business model.
Surprisingly, many high-added value and high-quality performance-driven industries such as automotive, aerospace, robotics, medical, technical textiles and hygiene rely on old-fashioned and manual inspection methods. Defects and contaminants are often detected only after production (end-of-line quality control) using cumbersome, slow and expensive X-Ray machines. This problem has a major impact on manufacturers and consumers as raw materials, production efforts and energy are irreversibly wasted due to this late and partial inspection. Moreover, due to the emergence and increasing prominence of high-performance composites cut across all fields – wind power (e.g. wind turbine blades), aerospace, automotive - effective and reliable production control and inspection techniques remain incipient – most of the inspection techniques are still done in a visual and manual way (“market creation” opportunity).
How do we solve it? TULIPZ is a disruptive IoT plug & play solution for inline production and quality control, which combines a patented Terahertz (THz) technology with proprietary deep-learning algorithms deployed as an Inspection- As-A-Service platform. It allows for real-time multi-measurement in one (humidity, grammage, and material distribution) along production lines instead of the currently used multi-technology end-of-line approach, thus guaranteeing quality, increased throughput and minimal waste.
TiHive’s commercialisation strategy for TULIPZ is to target customers in the “high volume” sectors, starting by product makers in the personal care and hygiene industries. Thanks to TULIPZ we were able to mature and fully finalise our hardware and software platforms to serve the market of hygiene producers.
Our mature technology opens possibilities as well in the short term in neighbouring industries requiring real-time inspection over the 100% of the fabricated products. Industries include the nonwovens manufacturers, leather products industrials, etc.
Our ambition since the beginning of the project and now is for TiHive to become leaders in the supply of inspection solutions for the hygiene market. Thanks to TULIPZ, we completed the design and fabrication of our turnkey inspection solution and the precommercial actions to achieve our deployment and commercial goals.
Surprisingly, many high-added value and high-quality performance-driven industries such as automotive, aerospace, robotics, medical, technical textiles and hygiene rely on old-fashioned and manual inspection methods. Defects and contaminants are often detected only after production (end-of-line quality control) using cumbersome, slow and expensive X-Ray machines. This problem has a major impact on manufacturers and consumers as raw materials, production efforts and energy are irreversibly wasted due to this late and partial inspection. Moreover, due to the emergence and increasing prominence of high-performance composites cut across all fields – wind power (e.g. wind turbine blades), aerospace, automotive - effective and reliable production control and inspection techniques remain incipient – most of the inspection techniques are still done in a visual and manual way (“market creation” opportunity).
How do we solve it? TULIPZ is a disruptive IoT plug & play solution for inline production and quality control, which combines a patented Terahertz (THz) technology with proprietary deep-learning algorithms deployed as an Inspection- As-A-Service platform. It allows for real-time multi-measurement in one (humidity, grammage, and material distribution) along production lines instead of the currently used multi-technology end-of-line approach, thus guaranteeing quality, increased throughput and minimal waste.
TiHive’s commercialisation strategy for TULIPZ is to target customers in the “high volume” sectors, starting by product makers in the personal care and hygiene industries. Thanks to TULIPZ we were able to mature and fully finalise our hardware and software platforms to serve the market of hygiene producers.
Our mature technology opens possibilities as well in the short term in neighbouring industries requiring real-time inspection over the 100% of the fabricated products. Industries include the nonwovens manufacturers, leather products industrials, etc.
Our ambition since the beginning of the project and now is for TiHive to become leaders in the supply of inspection solutions for the hygiene market. Thanks to TULIPZ, we completed the design and fabrication of our turnkey inspection solution and the precommercial actions to achieve our deployment and commercial goals.
The project was structured around 6 work packages that address the project objectives. It included three technical development packages, a trial program, precommercial actions and a project management package. To accomplish the project goal, we have set 4 main objectives, 5 key milestones, and 10 deliverables, included into the mentioned work packages.
During the project, we successfully developed and produced a modular terahertz multicamera inspection system and a Cloud platform to deploy inspection applications. We deployed and tested our system in a real-industrial conditions with several trial customers thanks to our Early Access Program (EAP), to facilitate the first steps of commercial deployment. Thanks to the good results during the trial deployments, we could sign our first commercial contracts, which provide initial proof of our Inspection as a Service business model.
During the project, we successfully developed and produced a modular terahertz multicamera inspection system and a Cloud platform to deploy inspection applications. We deployed and tested our system in a real-industrial conditions with several trial customers thanks to our Early Access Program (EAP), to facilitate the first steps of commercial deployment. Thanks to the good results during the trial deployments, we could sign our first commercial contracts, which provide initial proof of our Inspection as a Service business model.
From a technical viewpoint, beyond monitoring, TULIPZ has broken several technological barriers. For the first time in the world, we have developed a Terahertz based inspection system that comprises:
- multicamera THz (never done before for THz systems)
- multisource THz (never done before for THz systems)
- edge computing to cloud and Big Data (never done before for THz systems)
- that uses CMOS semiconductor technologies (versus complex compounds and laser-based technologies)
- that runs at high speeds (never done before for THz systems)
- in a harsh production environment (never done before for THz systems)
- measuring approximately 1 million products per week, in the last year, which was never done before with a THz system.
- and with a mastered supply chain for production of this system
We are proud and appreciate the EIC support for TULIPZ, because this enabling technology will allow us to become the leaders of inline inspection of quality and raw materials. TiHive’s mission is to make quality and resources management accessible to everyone building products that impact our lives positively, by building easy to use and powerful hardware and software sensing and imaging solutions. This has been made possible through the EIC funded TULIPZ project.
Beyond TULIPZ, our Technological Ips will also open doors for other applications in the medical field, the security field, as well as the 6G communications field.
From a societal standpoint, our TULIPZ solution will bring positive impacts on consumers: mothers and father, babies, and the elderly, will all benefit from better products that reach the market because the TULIPZ solution will help the industrials ship the best products to the market. They will also benefit from products that have a lower cost to produce, which means that the producers can better price their products to penetrate markets will lower incomes, or even adapt during inflation periods.
Additionally, our customers believe that TULIPZ will help accelerate product RnD, which means that the product innovators can bring to the consumers better quality products that can be adapted, in a faster fashion, to the needs of markets, such as hygienic pads for female athletes, or more comfortable incontinence products for the elderly.
- multicamera THz (never done before for THz systems)
- multisource THz (never done before for THz systems)
- edge computing to cloud and Big Data (never done before for THz systems)
- that uses CMOS semiconductor technologies (versus complex compounds and laser-based technologies)
- that runs at high speeds (never done before for THz systems)
- in a harsh production environment (never done before for THz systems)
- measuring approximately 1 million products per week, in the last year, which was never done before with a THz system.
- and with a mastered supply chain for production of this system
We are proud and appreciate the EIC support for TULIPZ, because this enabling technology will allow us to become the leaders of inline inspection of quality and raw materials. TiHive’s mission is to make quality and resources management accessible to everyone building products that impact our lives positively, by building easy to use and powerful hardware and software sensing and imaging solutions. This has been made possible through the EIC funded TULIPZ project.
Beyond TULIPZ, our Technological Ips will also open doors for other applications in the medical field, the security field, as well as the 6G communications field.
From a societal standpoint, our TULIPZ solution will bring positive impacts on consumers: mothers and father, babies, and the elderly, will all benefit from better products that reach the market because the TULIPZ solution will help the industrials ship the best products to the market. They will also benefit from products that have a lower cost to produce, which means that the producers can better price their products to penetrate markets will lower incomes, or even adapt during inflation periods.
Additionally, our customers believe that TULIPZ will help accelerate product RnD, which means that the product innovators can bring to the consumers better quality products that can be adapted, in a faster fashion, to the needs of markets, such as hygienic pads for female athletes, or more comfortable incontinence products for the elderly.