42 Technology (42T) has joined forces with industry experts in machine vision, edge AI silicon and software – Balluff, Synaptics and Arcturus Networks – to help develop and demonstrate a breakthrough approach for AI-powered automated line clearance in pharmaceutical manufacturing.
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Teamwork and partnership concept.
The four partners have pooled their technology expertise and application knowledge to develop a lower cost, flexible, and scalable alternative to existing AI-powered automated technologies. Most dedicated systems designed to automate line clearance processes are too expensive for widespread use because of their high hardware costs, complex integration, and the need for extensive training on production lines.
The new approach, which has been developed with inputs from some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical manufacturers, addresses these challenges by using a fully autonomous, deep-learning AI platform. Unlike conventional systems, the inspection system is designed to enable in-process learning without the need for lengthy setup and training routines on live production lines.
Line clearance checks are critical in pharmaceutical manufacturing to ensure that all materials, products, labels and records from a previous batch have been completely removed before starting the next one. The process involves multiple manual inspections, often taking up to one hour between batches, which significantly impacts production efficiency, especially as the industry shifts towards personalised medicine and smaller batch sizes. Industry experts estimate up to 85% time savings with automated line clearance versus current manual checks.
42T has designed and built a technology demonstrator to showcase this new AI-driven system in action. It will be launched at this year’s Embedded World event in Nuremberg, Germany (11 to 13 March) at the Synaptics booth (Hall 4A, #259). It will feature at several other major industry and customer events throughout 2025.
The new AI-powered approach combines Balluff’s high-performance image acquisition system with Arcturus’s deep-learning models and the Synaptics AstraTM SL1680 edge AI processor. The Astra SL-Series won Best in Show at last year’s Embedded World event for its exceptional AI capabilities, low power consumption and cost efficiency.
A key limitation of existing automated solutions is the need for extensive on-site training of their machine learning models at multiple points on live production lines. This new AI-powered platform eliminates that requirement by using deep learning as a stand-alone method for continuous model improvement. This creates a fully-automatic process where datasets are continuously developed in real time.
The system’s embedded intelligence compensates for variables such as shadows and changing light conditions, while its unique self-learning capability continuously improves accuracy and reliability during real-time operation to further boost production efficiencies for pharmaceutical manufacturers.
David Sandner, product marketing manager for Machine Vision at Balluff said: “With some pharmaceutical manufacturers operating up to 100 production lines with 20 or more cameras on each, cost and complexity have been major barriers to automating line clearance. Balluff is developing image acquisition and processing platforms to help customers and partners address these challenges in more cost-efficient ways. These solutions promise a real breakthrough in helping manufacturers to boost production efficiencies, save costs and increase security.”
42T and its partners have worked together to develop their breakthrough approach to target the cost and performance requirements of the pharmaceutical sector but it could also be used in other regulated industries such as medical devices, and food and beverage. The system uses fixed position cameras at key locations for monitoring, and is flexible enough to accommodate ‘pan and tilt’ cameras to scan different production areas depending on the application.
Synaptics’ SL Series is designed for high-volume, edge-AI IoT applications such as home and industrial control, smart appliances, digital signage, and displays. As an AI-native platform, designers can directly embed intelligence into the processor architecture to enable connected products with faster and more adaptive decision-making. This makes it the ideal solution for pharmaceutical manufacturers looking to integrate automated line clearance across multiple production lines.