APREX Solutions tracks anomalies at the heart of the industry

"Quality control, manufacturing process control, production environment control"

Their software solutions bring intelligence to machines. The young Nancy-based company Aprex has developed in a few years around image translation. Its fine decoding systems are beginning to be used by industry and embedded in robots.

A baby of the Jean-Lamour Institute and the Lorraine incubator, this prolific nursery where genius, public power and nugget researchers mix, Aprex solutions was born in Nancy (54) in 2017 from a collision of gray cells. The company was founded by Romain Baude, PhD in physics and plasma engineering, Mickaël Désécures, a nuclear fusion engineer and PhD in physics, Frédéric Brochard, a researcher at the CNRS and a specialist in rapid imaging, and Jamal Bougdira, a professor at the University of Lorraine's Faculty of Science and Technology. These brilliant minds have developed a software suite capable of making still and moving images speak. Their product, called "Aprex Track" aims to go beyond the current limits of image analysis. It took the team of scientists ten years to develop and consolidate it. Today, the technology is mature and continues to evolve. The company has about ten employees and is really entering the marketing phase. What it offers is expertise - its creators all have experience in image analysis in the nuclear industry - and flexibility. Romain Baude, president of Aprex solutions, details the purpose: "Our software suite allows us to do control, essentially."

Inspect 100 frames per second

Quality control, i.e. ensuring that a product conforms to predefined specifications; manufacturing process control, how parts are assembled, and production environment control for robot guidance, 20, 30 with or without artificial intelligence." Aprex Track thus embeds nuance and insight into machines. "By installing cameras that will inform the robot about the exact conditions of its environment, we bring finesse to the execution of its tasks. We will be able to guide it or enable it to understand certain situations. In logistics, for example, a robot cannot know if a box is right side up or upside down. The camera will therefore be able to tell the robot which way the box is facing and where to put it. Tailored to demand, Aprex's system has other applications. It can detect an air bubble in a material, a roughness on a surface or the absence of tears in plastic parts. Aprex Track can inspect up to 100 images per second. A rate that the eye is unable to keep up with. On the other hand," says Romain Baude, "we at Aprex believe that while the technology is perfect for detecting anomalies, the intervention of an operator is more than relevant for assessing the severity of the problem and making a decision on its resolution." Aprex is keen to keep a heart beating in the chest of Industry 4.0.

Article from l'Est Républicain - Région Lorraine / Saturday 19 June 2021

Author Thierry FEDRIGO / Photo L'Oeil Créatif

Read the article on L'Est Républicain : https://www.estrepublicain.fr/economie/2021/06/19/aprex-solutions-l-analyse-d-images-au-coeur-de-l-industrie