The textile industry is one of the biggest industries in the world, with a $3T value, but at the same time, one of the most pollutants with a huge environmental impact, responsible for 20% of global clean water pollution, and emitting 10% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Part of this impact is due to waste, generated in the production process, which results from the production of defective textiles. In most cases, these defects are only detected in later inspection stages, which are performed by visual inspection which is not efficient, increases the cost of the final product, and is performed after the textile has been produced. So, technologies that may contribute to the reduction of textile waste will have a huge impact on the textile industry and the environment. To mitigate these issues SMARTEX and SUN TEKSTIL intend to develop a new system based on artificial intelligence and machine vision that, installed in circular knitting machines, can detect the defects in complex fabrics at the time they are produced. This leads to the reduction of the defective textiles to close to 0% with evident economic and environmental benefits. SMARTEX has a current system that is developed for plain fabrics (without color variations or surface curvatures) which represent a small percentage of total fabrics produced. With this proposal, the consortium intends to develop new artificial intelligence models, additional hardware (composed mainly of the cameras, lighting systems, and communication components), data analyses models, and also validate this new system in SUN TEKSTIL knitting machines, that will have a key role in the classification of the types and degrees of the defects, that will later be used to train the artificial intelligence model. The consortium will be composed of SMARTEX and SUN TEKSTIL which have complementary expertise, that will be fundamental for the project’s success. SMARTEX will develop the system to monitor the defects in complex textile fabrics, that will later be able to commercialize to new clients, while SUN TEKSTIL will benefit from being an early adopter of the technology, gaining an economical and environmental advantage over their competitors.