Understanding What’s Behind Bright Machines’ Smart Skills Technology

July 25, 2024 | 4 min read

Pattawong Pansodtee, Senior Robot Perception Engineer

 

What are Smart Skills?

Smart Skills are Bright Machines’ proprietary technology that powers our Microfactories’ 3D navigation and machine learning-based inspection capabilities.

3D Navigation: Traditional automation systems rely on 2D navigation, which operates on a flat, two-dimensional plane and must work with confined mechanical fixtures. In contrast, Smart Skills employs 3D navigation, leveraging three-dimensional computer vision features or point cloud to adapt to a product’s pose (position and orientation). This allows our robotic end-of-arm tools to adjust to inevitable variations in the assembly environment, ensuring precise placement.

To achieve this flexible navigation, Bright Machines practices state-of-the-art computer vision techniques using multiple sensors like cameras, 3D scanner and force sensors. This combination enables our system to handle both ‘feature-rich’, highly detailed product components and ‘feature-poor’ components with fewer identifiable qualities. Because our technology operates in three dimensions, our robotic tools can detect the slightest changes in a product’s pose, automatically course-correcting for highest accuracy.

Machine Learning-Based Inspection: Smart Skills’ automated inspection system uses machine learning algorithms to detect quality issues in the assembly process. With Smart Skills, our inspection system can be trained for a variety of use cases, such as identifying anomalies, detecting debris, and classifying whether components have been assembled correctly—for example, verifying if latches are properly closed.

Our inspection process involves taking high-resolution images focused on specific regions of interest, unlike traditional methods that capture large images of the entire product, which must be filtered and narrowed down to focus on specific target areas. Smart Skills’ targeted inspection approach is driven by our 3D navigation capabilities, allowing our inspection technology to focus on exact inspection points for maximized efficiency.

Smart Skills Value for Customers

A beneficial result of Smart Skills is the reduced time to introduce new products for assembly. Bright Machines speeds up the new product introduction (NPI) process for AI hardware, such as servers, by being able to train new SKUs offline for over-the-air (OTA) deployment in hours compared to weeks or even months with traditional assembly methods. In a world where numerous new server models are designed and released each year, creating a more efficient NPI process to shorten the time to market means increased revenue opportunities for our customers. 

 

“In a world where numerous new server models are designed and released each year, creating a more efficient NPI process to shorten the time to market means increased revenue opportunities for our customers.”

 

Additionally, the flexibility of Smart Skills’ 3D navigation enables Microfactories to rapidly changeover across the assembly of various products with minimal downtime. A single Bright Robotic Cell (BRC) can support multiple SKUs, seamlessly transitioning assembly of different product models without any mechanical changes needed to end-of-arm tools. For companies like hyperscalers that assemble multiple product models on a given day, this capability results in significantly reduced setup time and costs. Moreover, we perform both pre- and post-assembly inspection to check for issues, such as misplaced components before assembly, and verify correct execution after assembly completion.

Complementing these efficiency gains, Bright Machines’ inspection process utilizes machine learning models trained to identify specific use cases. Our ML models can be built with just a few hundred samples. The model is initially trained with data collected during the NPI process and then continuously improved with additional data gathered from production post-deployment.

An example of Smart Skills identifies DIMM slots with DIMM cards present (green) vs. absent (red).

Today, our inspection technology can be applied to both automated Microfactories and manual stations, assisting manual operators with automating and increasing the accuracy of product inspection. Smart Skills comes with full part and process traceability, allowing customers who value data and security to detect cases of security tampering. Bright Machines’ high-resolution inspection operates at micron-level accuracy – crucial for working with high-value components to avoid costly rework.

Impact of Smart Skills on Manufacturing

Smart Skills represents more than just technological progress—it’s changing how automation operates across the manufacturing industry. With flexible automation navigation and automated inspection, manufacturers can improve product quality and consistency. These are crucial benefits in an era where products such as AI servers are increasingly more expensive and there is a growing demand for quality output at scale. As we continue to enhance Smart Skills, we’re setting our sights on a future where manufacturing becomes not only more efficient, but also more adaptable and innovative. At Bright Machines, we’re establishing new standards for the industry with Smart Skills.

To learn more about our capabilities in building the backbone of AI, visit Bright Machines.