SINGAPORE – Hyundai Motor Company has joined the Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre (ARTC), a unit of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), as an anchor member of its industry consortium. The partnership will enable Hyundai to join other public and private consortium members to co-innovate in the future of automotive manufacturing and smart mobility.

This development follows the ground-breaking announcement¹ of the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center in Singapore (HMGICS) due to be completed by the end of 2022, which will serve as an innovation centre for future mobility studies and build small-scale manufacturing capabilities focused on electric vehicles (EVs). 

Hyundai joining as an anchor member of ARTC also follows the signing of a tripartite memorandum of understanding on 26 January 2021 between Hyundai, A*STAR, and another anchor member of ARTC, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA), to promote R&D collaboration activities in the areas of digital transformation, productivity, EV transition and future mobility through ARTC’s Land Transport Pillar.

The collaboration between Hyundai and A*STAR’s ARTC will build on the successful completion of two pilot projects in September 2021 for potential implementation in HMC’s manufacturing facilities. The smart manufacturing solutions were designed to achieve productivity improvements and free manufacturing workers to take on higher-value tasks.


Pilot Projects to Train AI Models: Synthetic Image Generation and Automated Labelling of Component Images

While artificial intelligence (AI) models can assist in inspecting the quality of parts and components on the manufacturing line, the AI models need to be trained over time to recognise specifications and images. When a line is first started up, the issue is usually insufficient data and workers having to spend time and resources to manually train the AI model. 

In these pilot projects, A*STAR scientists leveraged their capabilities in deep learning and virtual image creation, to work together with Hyundai engineers to design software that can generate large quantities of synthetic images based on real-world data, and also automatically annotate and label individual components for automotive components. The solutions can save workers the highly repetitive and time-consuming tasks of manually annotating images and feeding real images into the system to train the AI model for quality inspection.

In pilot tests, the solutions helped achieve an improvement in process cycle time and increased the reliability and stability of the manufacturing systems. The A*STAR Research Institutes involved in these pilot projects were from ARTC and the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech).


Future Research to Tackle Automotive Manufacturing and Smart Mobility Challenges 

Through ARTC’s consortium, Hyundai will collaborate with A*STAR research institutes and other industry players on the development of advanced vision systems, robotics applications, digital twins in the metaverse, and software that can assist in tracking the well-being of its workers.

There have been many exciting developments for land transport in Singapore in recent times. The R&D ecosystem is well positioned to contribute to the growth of this sector. Public-private partnerships and an open innovation approach can bring significant value to industry. We look forward to working with Hyundai to achieve R&D breakthroughs that will uplift the industry as a whole and upskill our workers in the process.

Mr Frederick Chew, Chief Executive Officer of A*STAR

Under this Anchor membership, Hyundai will collaborate with ARTC to develop technologies to be implemented to the Group’s HMGICS facility in order to enhance efficiency and present the future of intelligent manufacturing. Open innovation and strategic partnerships with A*STAR and other local research partners will also support faster and efficient adoption of Hyundai's future mobility solutions. We are confident Hyundai’s efforts will also contribute to Singapore’s mobility roadmap.

Dr Youngcho Chi, President and Chief Innovation Officer of Hyundai Motor Group