Grant: Engage Grants Program

Graphics processing units (GPUs), originally developed for the electronic games industry to improve the rendering speed and quality of computer graphics, have proven extremely useful for general computations as well. As a result, the average desktop computer can now achieve a level of computing power that was once available only at a handful of supercomputing facilities worldwide. This revolution is bringing high performance computing to the masses, driving innovation, and transforming what businesses, both large and small, can achieve. Sightline Innovation is a Canadian company that sells a production line inspection system (called Verify) that utilizes software to sort, assess, and finally make automated decisions about parts on a continuously moving conveyor belt. It is important to make the correct decision - whether or not to reject a potentially defective part, say - and to make this decision in as short a time as possible to maintain factory workflow. There are several factors, such as the random alignment of parts along the belt or variable lighting levels and direction, that add to the challenge of this problem. The objective of this project is to harness the new computing power of GPUs to tackle these problems and to improve further the speed, accuracy, and functionality of the Verify software.