Lynx & Google Partner on Industrial Quality Inspection Solution

Lynx Software Technologies (Lynx) has announced that its MOSA.ic platform supports the deployment of Google Anthos Bare Metal at the mission-critical edge providing a validated solution for secure, video-based quality inspection in industrial and energy facilities.

The new solution enables the deployment of real-time image capturing on devices such as cameras on manufacturing plant floors and inference models built by Google Cloud Visual Inspection AI that generate the insights. In addition, the supervisory controller connects to the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and translates the insights into action.

“As a provider of mission-critical edge, we’re thrilled to announce support for Google Anthos Bare Metal and Google Cloud Visual Inspection AI”, said Pavan Singh, Vice President of Product Management at Lynx. “With the new solution we’re jointly bringing to market, any containerized service can now be deployed to the mission-critical edge without compromising security or performance. This partnership also marks an important step in our growing industrial ecosystem”.

The solution’s use of Google Anthos bare metal support means that now an entire Kubernetes cluster can be run locally in as little as one hardware system at the edge, with Lynx enabled virtual air gapping providing isolation between the different parts of the system.

Previously, the merging of operational technology (OT) and IT worlds – training AI and machine learning models in the cloud and deploying cloud-based workloads at the edge – posed security challenges in mission-critical industrial environments. Lynx ensures the three functions – image capture (camera), insight via inference engine (Google Anthos) and the action with a supervisory controller – are completely sandboxed with the option of secure one way (data diode) connections between them.

For industrial and energy companies that are already feeling the strain of supply chain disruptions and labour shortages, Lynx says this video-based quality system “plays a significant role in enhancing performance and quality of output, while mitigating security risks”. Through efficient visual inspection, defects can be reduced, defective parts prevented from being shipped out, and insights can be gleaned into the cause of any defects to optimize processes.

The solution is run on an Advantech MIC770 but the LYNX MOSA.ic solution is able to run on various Intel and ARM processors.

Find more information about the partnership between Lynx Software and Google Cloud on the companies’ respective websites.

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