Neural Grader

The European wood industry is at a distinct cost disadvantage compared to Asian markets due to higher labour costs in Europe that contribute to making European wood more expensive. As decreasing labour costs is demanding, the European wood industry instead needs to look for new ways to sharpen its competitive edge. One way is through the use of digitisation. To help digitise the European wood industry, the EU-funded Neural Grader project has developed an automated solution for processing lumber. Its innovation lies in the industrial cameras that capture images of each board and, using state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence methods, accurately classify wood quality. Neural Grader also computes the optimal way for cutting the boards and sends commands to the cutting machine, preventing wood waste.