The NDTMA – Nondestructive Testing Management Association has recognized VisiConsult’s X-ray AI copilot “COMPASS” with the prestigious Innovation Award 2025.
As X-ray inspection evolves, the bottleneck has shifted from image acquisition to evaluation, creating challenges due to limited skilled personnel. This is why VisiConsult has developed the Automated Defect Recognition (ADR) tool based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) called the “COMPASS – the X-ray AI Copilot”, supporting the inspection of castings, welds, honeycomb structures and electronic components.
Currently COMPASS is the only AI powered evaluation tool for 2D X-ray images on the market. It can be used as an assistant for inspectors by detecting and measuring indications, with final decisions made by humans. But of course, it can also provide a fully autonomous evaluation where permitted.
COMPASS impresses with inference times between 100 and 200 ms and an accuracy of over 98% (indication level, not defect level) for all relevant indication classes (porosity, inclusions, lack of fusion, etc.). The inspection time is reduced by about 60% and the inspection quality is increased by about 25%. The AI algorithms can be executed locally on an evaluation computer, on a local server or in the cloud.
The NDTMA explained the jury’s decision as follows: The impact of this innovation unlocks significant potential for operating companies all around the world as the cycle time for performing an evaluation is decrease, inspection quality goes up and operator stress is being reduced. It also helps to solve the problem of labor shortage, that is rampant in many parts of the western world, especially, when it comes to tasks that includes hardships like working through nightshifts etc. It allows humans to refocus on what matters: Making the really tough calls, bringing in judgement when necessary, supervising the AI and writing the techniques that guide its decisions.
The NDTMA Innovation Award is announced annually to an NDTMA member company or program / project (group of companies with a minimum of one NDTMA member company lead) in recognition of creativity in the form of innovative use of an NDT technology. The award will be presented on Feb 20th at the Annual Conference in Las Vegas/United States.