Elroy Lab (CEO Kwang-seon Yoo) will be holding the ‘7 Agri & Food Tech Start-up Rising Expo 26’ held at COEX Hall A in Seoul for three days from Wednesday, July 28th to Friday, July 3th. announced that it will participate in ‘ and introduce a hyperspectral AI foreign matter separator.
Under the slogan ‘Looking at the world with new eyes,’ Elroy Lab seeks to make the world cleaner through process automation through hyperspectral and deep learning. Elroy Lab’s first commercialized service, ‘Hyperspectral AI Foreign Matter Sorter’, has been applied to the food industry and is contributing to creating a healthier food culture by detecting previously undetected foreign substances.
Existing X-ray or metal detectors had limitations on the types of foreign substances that could be sorted out, and optical sorters also had the problem of not being able to detect foreign substances with colors and shapes similar to the original material.
On the other hand, SPECTRAL AI can detect foreign substances that were previously undetectable by utilizing hyperspectral and artificial intelligence technologies. It is evaluated as a new technology that completely replaces existing foreign matter screening technology by analyzing the chemical characteristics of the test object using spectral data and learning and detecting the data through deep learning SW technology.
An official from Elroy Lab said, “During the process of developing a product, our company discovered a problem in which differences in product settings occurred depending on the abilities of the practitioner, and attempted to solve this problem through artificial intelligence technology. While studying artificial intelligence, I became convinced that if hyperspectral technology, which was an existing development project, and artificial intelligence were combined, a new machine vision market could be created,” he said. “Although I was relatively marginalized in the machine vision market, I was able to create a new machine vision market that was directly related to consumer safety.” “We decided that there was a need in the food manufacturing market, so we developed the product,” he said.
He continued, “We are currently considering introducing equipment into the factory with investment from CJ in the Pre-A investment round, and we have signed sales contracts with two other large food manufacturing companies, and delivered one unit last year.” The company is targeting sales of 2 billion won, and has already achieved its goal of 1 billion won in the first half of the year. Additionally, it is currently in the review stage for introduction with about 20 food manufacturing companies. “In addition to the food industry, various industries such as displays, secondary batteries, and pharmaceuticals have also been requesting the introduction of solutions using hyperspectral AI,” he added.
Future plans were also announced. An official said, “Due to the nature of food, the shape and characteristics of the raw materials are very diverse, so much consideration is needed about the method of input and removal of foreign substances. “Our first goal is to upgrade the current product and apply it to a wider range of food groups,” he said. “We plan to improve the product so that it can detect even small foreign substances less than 1 mm.” “We are seeking to advance into high-tech industries such as semiconductors that require microscopic inspection by developing equipment suitable for hyperspectral optical systems,” he said.
Meanwhile, at AFRO 2023, the largest Agtech & Foodtech event in Korea, domestic startups with global growth potential in Agtech, Foodtech, and Green Bio will exhibit products and services to solve various problems in the agriculture and food industries, Various programs such as conferences discussing the present and future of Agtech and Foodtech and investment briefings (IR competitions) are held. This exhibition is hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and supervised by the Korea Agricultural Technology Promotion Agency, NH Nonghyup, COEX, and the Korea Food Tech Council.