Thanks to the additional Intel®
Next-Generation Iris® Xe Graphics graphics unit, the
3.5"‑SBC‑TGL single board computer can be used in AI,
deep learning, and similar applications that require high speeds and processor performance
After severe hailstorms back in 2016, it became clear that climate change poses serious challenges for the hail
damage appraiser industry. The idea of a digital scanner solution was the brainchild of HaSt founders and
managing directors Michael Lenhartz and Jens Orzol, who both run their own surveyor’s offices. Using image
recognition and AI, they wanted to relieve the experts of the time-consuming task of counting the dents caused
by hail.
HaSt GmbH was founded to clearly separate scanner development from the hail damage appraiser offices. A research
project was started with the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS. At the
time, Artificial Intelligence was about to become much more widely used in practice, following a series of
breakthroughs in speech.
Advances in AI innovation leveraged
However, given the state of AI technology at the time, the project was still challenging. In 2020, industrial
engineer Tino Blankenheim joined the management team to coordinate
the further development and re-evaluation of the research results. In the meantime, a lot had happened in AI
innovation, and the product was soon available as a prototype. With Schaden-Schnellhilfe (SSH), Germany’s
largest umbrella organization of independent motor vehicle experts, a very large network was available to test
and establish the hail scanner in a pilot project – by experts for experts.
The association’s biggest customer
is the insurance industry, which commissions its 80 partner offices at over 200 locations throughout Germany to
assess accident damage. The newly opened doors made it possible to validate the scan quality and output even
better. The prototype has been continuously developed and optimized for practical use.
Speed boost
with Kontron computers
“We have now equipped the product, which has been on the market since 2021, with new computer technology that
gives us completely different possibilities and speed,” explains the HaSt managing director. In the first
version of the product, the evaluation time after passing through the scanner sheet took about five minutes.
