Innometry ships inspection gear for a 46-series battery line

At Innometry’s headquarters in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, employees posed beside the equipment that has just left the building. The company says it has shipped non-destructive inspection systems for a major battery maker’s mass-production line for 46-series cylindrical batteries—a shipment for a battery manufacturer’s mass-production line.

The shipment combines two kinds of checks. CT units examine electrode alignment inside each cell, while X-ray systems are designed to detect foreign materials that could remain hidden inside the battery. The equipment checks the cells without cutting them open, preserving the product while screening for defects.

Innometry says the installation is the industry’s first in-line CT system capable of inspecting 46-series batteries on a mass-production line. It also says its foreign-object detector is the first of its kind now operating at a commercial site. These are the manufacturer’s claims; no independent test is cited in the report.

The timing reflects a shift in battery manufacturing. Prismatic cells still dominate the global market, helped by safety, scalability and yield advantages, but major battery makers are moving toward 46-series cylindrical cells as Tesla and BMW pursue next-generation electric vehicle batteries. Korean manufacturers are building production lines across Europe and North America, where quality control and stable yields will matter as those operations expand.

So what changes in practice? A battery maker can add CT and X-ray checks directly to a high-volume production line, looking for alignment problems and foreign material before defective cells move further through manufacturing. Innometry is also developing inspection equipment for prismatic batteries used in North American energy-storage systems and European electric vehicles. CEO Lee Gab-soo said project deliveries temporarily slowed second-quarter earnings, while negotiations with clients in Korea and China could support growth through the second half of this year and into 2027.