Human inspectors become fatigued or distracted. Systems now evaluate solder joints, welds, cuttings, and glue applications. One car manufacturer is now even prototyping a system which evaluates the color of paints. This system digitizes pictures of new batches of paint to determine if they are the right shades. Another major area where neural networks are being built into pattern recognition systems is as processors for sensors.
Sensors can provide so much data that the few meaningful pieces of information can become lost.
Many of these sensor-processing applications exist within the defense industry. These neural network systems have been shown successful at recognizing targets. These sensor processors take data from cameras, sonar systems, seismic recorders, and infrared sensors. That data is then used to identify probable phenomenon. Another field related to defense sensor processing is the recognition of patterns within the sensor data of the medical industry.