Elevating Innovation: Demonstrating the Impact of Millimeter-Wave Imaging Technology with AI

Client:

ThruWave, an early-stage startup based in Seattle, is revolutionizing package inspection with its innovative imaging sensor technology.

ThruWave's imaging sensor utilizes human-safe millimeter-wave technology to address challenges across various sectors including mail services, supply chain, e-commerce, manufacturing, and security. By offering a fully automated system capable of scanning closed packages, generating images, and leveraging advanced algorithms and machine learning (ML), ThruWave enhances sustainability and human safety through metrics like cube utilization, identification of contraband, and detection of anomalies (defects) in packages and products.

Challenge:

ThruWave, operating with a small technical team amidst the constraints of the COVID-19 environment, faced the challenge of creating training datasets crucial for developing ML models with limited manpower. Additionally, ThruWave's data science team required support in analyzing model performance, refining existing models, and advancing their data pipeline and ML infrastructure. Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) was essential for showcasing the sensor's capabilities and ability to enhance customer processes across a variety of sectors.

Solution:

Maddendeavor swiftly immersed itself in understanding the intricacies of ThruWave's imaging sensor technology and various use cases. Crafting a comprehensive dataset generation plan involved defining the operational parameters for each scenario and optimizing image acquisition through design of experiments. Maddendeavor then executed the plan, meticulously analyzing products to meet scenario requirements and leading the capture of hundreds of millimeter wave images over multiple days. To augment efficiency, Maddendeavor developed custom Python automation tools (including barcode integration) for test case planning, image verification, and high-quality labeling thus streamlining the manual scanning process. The resulting high-quality datasets facilitated the creation and enhancement of ML models, showcased through live customer demonstrations and system performance reports. Furthermore, Maddendeavor delivered an analysis framework to evaluate ML model performance on new data, pinpointing areas for enhancement and recommended changes in future iterations. When requested, Maddendeavor created new models or directly implemented the suggested changes. Throughout the engagement, Maddendeavor provided invaluable technical feedback, enriching ThruWave's internal ML development and deployment infrastructure.

Impact:

The customer demonstrations featuring ML models led to proof-of-concept (POC) and pilot program agreements at multiple customer locations, effectively driving direct customer revenue for ThruWave and demonstrating customer traction to venture capital investors. Additionally, the collaboration yielded a technical paper and corresponding patent submission, leveraging the intellectual property derived from the project.

Win:

Maddendeavor distinguished itself by actively collaborating with ThruWave's management and engineering teams, refining design and performance requirements for each use case. This collaboration ensured that the ML models and data products not only provided strategic value but also aligned with ThruWave's overarching vision. Over the course of the 4-month fractional contract, Maddendeavor not only significantly contributed to the data science team, but also played a pivotal role in enhancing ThruWave's system quality and market competitiveness.

Services:

- Data Science & Analysis

- ML Operations

- Quality Assurance

Highlighted Technologies:

- Python

- Jupyter Notebooks

- PostgreSQL

- REST API

- Docker

- Linux