Human in the AI loop via xAI and Active Learning for Visual Inspection

Industrial revolutions have historically disrupted manufacturing by introducing automation into production. Increasing automation reshapes the role of the human worker. Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence open new frontiers of human-machine collaboration. Such collaboration can be realized considering two sub-fields of artificial intelligence: active learning and explainable artificial intelligence. Active learning aims to devise strategies that help obtain data that allows machine learning algorithms to learn better. On the other hand, explainable artificial intelligence aims to make the machine learning models intelligible to the human person. The present work first describes Industry 5.0, human-machine collaboration, and state-of-the-art regarding quality inspection, emphasizing visual inspection. Then it outlines how human-machine collaboration could be realized and enhanced in visual inspection. Finally, some of the results obtained in the EU H2020 STAR project regarding visual inspection are shared, considering artificial intelligence, human digital twins, and cybersecurity.