Audi - Artificial Intelligence for Quality Control of Spot Welds

06/30/23 

Audi is pushing forward with the digitalization of its production activities. 

Following a successful pilot project, Audi has begun rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system for quality-control of spot welds in car body construction. The AI was developed and tested beforehand at the Neckarsulm site. By the end of the year, the technical infrastructure for the use of AI will be installed at three other Volkswagen Group locations. The project also serves as a use case for the Automotive Initiative 2025 (AI25) launched by Audi.

Using artificial intelligence, Audi analyzes around 1.5 million spot welds on 300 vehicles each shift at its Neckarsulm site. By comparison, until recently, production staff used ultrasound to manually monitor the quality of resistance spot welding (abbreviated WPS in German) processes based on random analyses. With the ultrasound method, they checked around 5,000 spot welds per vehicle. By applying AI, employees can now focus on possible anomalies. This new approach will enable them to control quality more efficiently and in a more targeted way.

Preparations for using the technology at other plants in the Volkswagen Group have already begun. The technical infrastructure for AI use is currently being installed at Audi Brussels. The Volkswagen plant in Emden is scheduled to install the necessary infrastructure this year, as will Audi’s headquarters in Ingolstadt. To install the technical infrastructure at these locations, the team of experts is currently identifying differences in weld settings in order to retrain the AI model accordingly.

AI can be used to optimize other processes in the future. The Audi team is currently working on using the data as a basis for predictive maintenance down the road. “Digitalized assembly lines are a foundation for Audi’s vision for the production of the future: As part of our 360factory production strategy, we will make production at Audi locations worldwide even more efficient.

Close coordination with DGQ, Fraunhofer IAO, and Fraunhofer IPA

Development at the Neckarsulm location was carried out in close coordination with the German Association for Quality (DGQ), the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), and the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA).  Audi has also developed an AI guide for production with the Fraunhofer Institutes IAO and IPA.

The project “WPS-Analytics” also serves as a use case for the Automotive Initiative 2025 (AI25) launched by Audi. The initiative aims to establish a competence network for digital factory transformation and innovation. Audi wants to leverage digitalization to make production and logistics more flexible and efficient. On its way to becoming a smart factory, Audi and partners from science and the IT industry are testing digital solutions to produce premium vehicles in a real manufacturing environment in Neckarsulm to deploy them in series production later.

https://www.audi-mediacenter.com/en/press-releases/audi-begins-roll-out-of-artificial-intelligence-for-quality-control-of-spot-welds-15443

https://www.audi-mediacenter.com/en/photos/detail/audi-begins-roll-out-of-artificial-intelligence-for-quality-control-of-spot-welds-117894

Comparison of Machine Learning Approaches for. Time-series-based Quality Monitoring of Resistance. Spot Welding (RSW). 

https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000105460/56698070

Quality Monitoring of Resistance Spot Welding Based on a Digital Twin

by Jianwei Dong,Jianming Hu andZhen Luo *

School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300354, China

*

Metals 2023, 13(4), 697; https://doi.org/10.3390/met13040697

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4701/13/4/697

Application of sensing techniques and artificial intelligence-based methods to laser welding real-time monitoring: A critical review of recent literature

October 2020Journal of Manufacturing Systems 57(1–4):1-18

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343541119_Application_of_sensing_techniques_and_artificial_intelligence-based_methods_to_laser_welding_real-time_monitoring_A_critical_review_of_recent_literature

Artificially Intelligent weld monitoring system

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https://www.tech27.com/weld-management-system.html

One hundred percent quality in the welding process with our AI solution

https://www.edi.gmbh/press-releases/one-hundred-percent-quality-in-the-welding-process-with-our-ai-solution