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The 90s Generation in Tangshan Drives Innovation in Robot AI Vision Technology
Eagle Eye Sees More Smiles
On March 27, at the Eagle Eye Intelligent Machine Vision Application Industrialization Base, Yuan Kuan (right) is testing product performance with a technician.Photo by Shi Yuan, Hebei Daily
On March 27, in the conference room of Hebei Eagle Eye Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. in Tangshan High-tech Zone, company leader Yuan Kuan is interviewing new candidates as the chief examiner.
After a series of professional questions, Yuan Kuan extended an olive branch: “Welcome to join our team, ‘Eagle Eye’ will let you see a different world.” As a post-90s returnee, Yuan Kuan shared, “Tangshan is a fertile ground for entrepreneurship; the field of robot AI vision is a highland of innovation.”
In 2016, after obtaining a master’s degree from the University of Birmingham in the UK, Yuan Kuan gave up the opportunity to pursue a PhD abroad and returned to China to start a business. In 2018, Eagle Eye Intelligent was registered in Tangshan High-tech Zone. “Currently, the Eagle Eye intelligent technology team has over 120 members, with an average age of 28, definitely a post-90s ‘team’.” Yuan Kuan told reporters that his graduate studies focused on robotics and computer vision, so he set his entrepreneurial goals in the field of robot AI vision technology from the start.
“Computer vision is an important branch of artificial intelligence,” Yuan Kuan said. The company’s technical team mainly focuses on how to use computers to obtain information from images or videos, analyze and understand it, with a wide range of application fields.
It is hard to imagine that Eagle Eye Intelligent’s application scenarios in such a “high-end” field started with “a roll of toilet paper.”
At the beginning of the company, when Yuan Kuan and team members conducted market research at a paper factory, they found that to ensure each roll of toilet paper was neatly sealed and oriented uniformly during packaging, the factory had dedicated personnel for this task. “Computer vision technology can simplify this process.” Thus, Yuan Kuan and his colleagues equipped the packaging machine with “vision” using a camera and a program, improving production efficiency and accuracy without manual operation.
On March 27, Yuan Kuan (right) is checking various parameters of the robot detecting profile steel with a technician.Photo by Shi Yuan, Hebei Daily
With a small trial, they achieved success. “Eagle Eye” aimed for a larger market. Soon, the development of robots for deep processing of steel and mining was included in the company’s vision.
In 2022, a steel enterprise faced difficulties in product defect detection. The output speed of the profile steel production line was 6 to 8 meters per second, and it was in a high-temperature state, making it impossible for manual inspection to detect defects in real-time. Sometimes, hundreds of meters of steel had to be produced before manual sampling could be conducted. Once a problem was found, all those hundreds of meters of products would be discarded due to potential hazards, resulting in significant losses.
Yuan Kuan led the team to “root” at the customer’s production site, assessing, designing, developing, and debugging, tailoring solutions… After more than a year of effort, they finally developed equipment using multispectral laser high-frequency scanning technology to monitor product dimensions and defects in real-time.
In the product display hall of Eagle Eye Intelligent, a robot for comprehensive detection of profiles and defects is demonstrating the detection process of profile steel. Within seconds, the length, shape, curvature, and defects of an H-shaped steel are displayed on the machine’s screen.
“This robot is our third-generation product. It can not only view the appearance of profiles in real-time at temperatures of 300 degrees Celsius but also accurately detect defects within. Product inspection is completed online, without the need for sampling,” Yuan Kuan said. The price of this detection equipment is only about one-tenth of similar foreign equipment, and its market share in China has exceeded 30%.
On March 27, at Hebei Eagle Eye Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., Yuan Kuan (right) is testing product performance with a technician.Photo by Shi Yuan, Hebei Daily
In the six years since its establishment, Eagle Eye Intelligent has developed rapidly. Currently, the company holds over 50 independent intellectual property rights, covering multiple fields such as “robot systems,” “AI vision algorithms,” and “digital intelligence,” with products spanning industries like steel mining, energy power, rail transportation, automotive, and pharmaceuticals.
Entering the Eagle Eye Intelligent Machine Vision Application Industrialization Base, reporters found that there were no busy assembly lines like other companies; the more than 10,000 square meters of factory space appeared somewhat empty.
“This is our pilot base, mainly used for developing new products,” Yuan Kuan told reporters. Currently, the company has not built a production line. “The robot shared manufacturing factory provides us with one-stop services in technology, equipment, warehousing, and logistics.” Yuan Kuan calculated that according to the current product types, the company would need to spend at least 30 million yuan to purchase production equipment. “The shared factory has a complete range of equipment and advanced processes, solving the problems of insufficient processing and manufacturing capacity and large capital occupation of factory equipment for the company.”
“The ‘group-style’ development has also formed an industrial agglomeration effect. Currently, there are over 150 upstream and downstream enterprises in Tangshan, including core components, assembly, inspection, and system integration for robots. “Through shared connections, the company’s ‘circle of friends’ is expanding, and the confidence in development is growing stronger,” Yuan Kuan said.
“Eagle Eye Intelligent is actively creating more application scenarios for robot vision systems. For example, we are actively building an ‘unmanned AI laboratory’ to further accelerate the iteration of intelligent products and services.” Regarding future development, Yuan Kuan told reporters that Eagle Eye Intelligent has a “smile plan”; in the future, after completing a project, they will take a smile photo with the client, “We believe that ‘Eagle Eye’ can see more smiles.”
Source: Hebei Daily Client
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