Internet of Things

Digital simulation for the Industrial IoT

PTC and ANSYS have a solution that will enable ANSYS engineering simulation technology to be rapidly added to applications built on the ThingWorx Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) platform from PTC. Development of a connector between these two technology platforms will enable customers to transform raw data into new forms of actionable intelligence. The connector will integrate intelligent digital simulation models with products as they exist and operate in the real world. This will open up new opportunities for companies to create value by enabling them to optimize operations and maintenance and to integrate them into their product development processes. Simulation helps companies understand situations that may occur – such as a product failure – as early as the design phase. When faced with limited access to rich historical data, companies can leverage simulation models to generate an initial “as designed” set of expected outcomes or product performance. The results of these simulations act as a rich source of data that can be used for supervised machine learning and predictive modelling. The ongoing connection between real-world performance, simulation, and machine learning helps companies make sense of data that can lead to predictive models and a more insightful feedback loop, enabling them to improve product design and modelling. The IoT is making it possible to create a digital twin that combines real-time data about a physical product with the organisation’s digital information about the product. Simulating digital twins provides advanced intelligence and insight into a product’s behaviours. The combination of the ThingWorx platform capabilities with ANSYS simulation models will enable companies to deploy powerful applications that can analyse current operating conditions, rapidly identify and diagnose operations issues, predict future operating conditions, and improve product performance. PTC and ANSYS will make the capabilities of this solution available within IoT applications developed on […]

Exponential Manufacturing Revolution

Diane Francis, Member of Advisory Council at Hudson Institute Kleptocracy Initiative The train to Boston from New York speeds past stunning scenery as well as the blight of abandoned factories, scarred with graffiti. These empty buildings are the remnants of a New England that was the China of the Industrial Revolution based on cheap immigrant labour. Today, its towns languish economically, except for Boston, which is enjoying a resurgence as a technology, pharma, and advanced manufacturing hub. America remains a manufacturing powerhouse, as well as the world’s pre-eminent technology nation, but marrying the two will take time. In global terms, the industrial sector represents one-third of all global economic output and represents half of the world’s energy consumption and renewables. “This year, offshore wind power generation matched the cost of natural gas power plants in Europe,” said Singularity’s energy expert Ramez Naam. “In windy parts of the world, wind power is cheapest, and in sunny parts of the world solar is.” In solar, record low prices were reached this year too. A major contract in Dubai at 2.91 U.S. cents per kilowatt hour, the world’s lowest — Ontario’s prices average 8 cents per kilowatt hour. India just completed the world’s largest solar farm (4.5 U.S. cents per kilowatt hour) and its federal government intends to have only electrically-powered vehicles by 2030 – completely bypassing fossil fuels. As these industries scale, costs plummet for solar panels and turbines. China is converting to renewables rapidly, but has also earmarked half a trillion dollars to become the world’s advanced manufacturing leader. This is a major pivot, necessary in light of the fact that cheap labour, in an era of technology, is no longer a competitive advantage. “China has launched the Artificial Intelligence Institute and its companies are buying companies globally in this space,” said […]

Books for the holidays

Apart from planning your budgets, why not go the library or book store and find a book to read. The list below offers some suggestions: China’s Mobile Economy: Opportunities in the Largest and Fastest Information Consumption Boom —Winston Ma (John Wiley & Sons, 2016; nonfiction) The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks —Joshua Cooper Ramo (Little, Brown and Company, 2016; nonfiction) Ordinary Grace —William Kent Krueger (Atria Books, 2014; fiction) Fundamentals of Press Brake Tooling —Ben Rapien (Hanser, 2010; nonfiction) Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy —Robert H. Frank (Princeton University Press, 2016; nonfiction) Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike —Phil Knight (Scribner, 2016; nonfiction) The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces that Will Shape Our Future —Kevin Kelly (Viking Books, 2016; nonfiction) Between the World and Me —Ta-Nehisi Coates (Spiegel & Grau, 2015; nonfiction) Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman —Brooke Hauser (HarperCollins Publishers, 2016; nonfiction) The Inner Lives of Markets: How People Shape Them—And They Shape Us —Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan (PublicAffairs, 2016; nonfiction) The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks —Joshua Cooper Ramo (Little, Brown & Company, 2016; nonfiction) The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing —Benjamin Graham (Harper Business, 2006; nonfiction) Australia’s Second Chance —George Megalogenis (Penguin Books Australia, 2015; nonfiction) The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas —G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa (Penguin Books, 2008; nonfiction) The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time —Arianna Huffington (Harmony, 2016; nonfiction) Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela —Nelson Mandela (Back Bay Books, 1995; nonfiction) The Politicians and the Egalitarians: The Hidden History of American Politics —Sean […]

How the AoThings will help unlock the value of the IoT

While the Internet of Things (IoT) offers awe-inspiring possibilities, companies must prepare to reap the full benefits by ensuring they have adequate analysis capabilities, according to Teradata. Alec Gardner, general manager, advanced analytics, ANZ, Teradata, said, “A comprehensive study in June 2015 by the McKinsey Global Institute concluded that IoT is one of those rare technology trends where the hype may actually understate the full potential. (1) “At the moment, companies are tapping into IoT to achieve greater reliability, resource efficiency, and cost reduction. The results are small, often benefiting a single person or process. But this will change when visionary organisations start to think more competitively and much bigger. This will lead to a new approach called the Analytics of Things. “By adopting the Analytics of Things, companies will aggregate data, then use advanced analytics to give the data greater context, making it part of a richer picture. For example, monitoring a patient’s heart rate across a period of time will provide some insight into their heart health, letting doctors recommend appropriate treatments for that individual. Aggregating the same data from thousands of people instead of just one lets researchers get a fuller picture. They can use that ongoing body of insights to support better treatments and medicines, ultimately saving more lives.” Savvy organisations are already starting to use the Analytics of Things to make the IoT more powerful, creating new revenue streams. For example, Teradata customer Siemens uses it to move from reactive to predictive maintenance on trains, reducing failures. As a result, Siemens has changed its business model, moving from selling trains to selling the performance of trains over a fixed period of time. The company does this by managing maintenance so customers don’t experience any appreciable unplanned downtime. Analysing data from train component sensors, the […]

Five steps to protecting Industrial Internet of Things infrastructure

Implement layer-7 inspection technologies for improved visibility Granular visibility of ICS protocols is a helpful step to increasing intelligence over data traffic. Linking this visibility to users and inspecting file-bearing applications is an essential part of this process. Next-generation firewalls employing advanced deep-packet inspection technology can help to deliver this capability. 2. Apply zero-trust network segmentation It is important to apply zero-trust rules with access allowed on a ‘least privilege’ basis, where users are given access only to the systems they need to carry out their duties. This approach can result in a marked reduction in the number of vectors that can be used by an attacker, while also providing better correlation between user and application. 3. Use modern tools for preventing zero-day attacks So-called zero-day attacks exploit previously unknown vulnerabilities in computer code to breach systems. Tools that can detect and prevent such threats at both the network and the endpoint levels are now essential for protection. A combination of malware ‘sandboxing’ solutions and advanced endpoint protection technology can help reduce the success of such attacks. 4. Secure mobile and virtual environments Mobile devices should be checked for proper configuration before being allowed to access the network and, once on the network, applications should be limited to reduce the potential attack vectors. For virtual environments, virtualised firewall technology should be used to provide better visibility to data traffic. 5. Use a cohesive security platform Many legacy ICS environments don’t have adequate security, and those that do often use security systems with point solution architecture. This can hamper performance, incident response, and administration. Next-generation firewall architecture, on the other hand, along with new models of centrally-connected endpoint security measures, support optimal operation and threat detection.

Defining the IoT

-Dr. Hai Wang, Senior Vice President, Technology & Operations, NXP Semiconductors. At NXP, we believe that we are entering a new era of computing technology that many are calling the Internet of Things (IoT). We see the IoT as billions of smart, connected “things” (a sort of “universal global neural network” in the cloud) that will encompass every aspect of our lives, and its foundation is the intelligence that embedded processing provides. IoT is made up of smart machines interacting and communicating with other machines, objects, environments and infrastructures. As a result, huge volumes of data are being generated, and that data is being processed into useful actions that can “command and control” things to make our lives much easier and safer—and to reduce humanity’s impact on the environment. How would IoT affect people and businesses now and in the future? IoT affects individuals, businesses large and small as well as industries. Today there are an estimated 2.9 billion people online, or 40% of the world’s population. Analysts expect that as nations and technology develop, 50% of the world’s population could be online by 2017. We could see up to 30 billion connected devices in coming years, three times more than today’s 10 billion connected devices. The major impact of IoT will be in consumer and business sectors, security and safety, education and healthcare, as well as in governments and policy shaping. What benefits do NXP Smart Solutions bring to businesses? A critical value that NXP brings is secure connectivity solutions. In fact, NXP is currently the world’s leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, enabling secure connections and infrastructure for a smarter world. Our solutions work behind the scenes, helping partners in the global ecosystem as they work to are create and deliver complete hardware and software solutions […]

Deep learning technology to analyse data with high precision

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. has developed deep learning technology that can analyse time-series data with a high degree of accuracy. Demonstrating promise for Internet-of-Things applications, time-series data can also be subject to severe volatility, making it difficult for people to discern patterns in the data. Deep learning technology, which is attracting attention as a breakthrough in the advance of artificial intelligence, has achieved extremely high recognition accuracy with images and speech, but the types of data to which it can be applied is still limited. In particular, it has been difficult to accurately and automatically classify volatile time-series data – such as that taken from IoT devices – of which people have difficulty discerning patterns. Now Fujitsu Laboratories has developed an approach to deep learning that uses advanced mathematical techniques to extract geometric features from time-series data, enabling highly accurate classification of volatile time-series. In benchmark tests held at UC Irvine Machine Learning Repository that classified time-series data captured from gyroscopes in wearable devices, the new technology was found to achieve roughly 85% accuracy, about a 25% improvement over existing technology. This technology will be used in Fujitsu’s Human Centric AI Zinrai artificial intelligence technology. Background In recent years, in the field of machine learning, which is a central technology in artificial intelligence, deep learning technology has been attracting attention as a way to automatically extract feature values needed to interpret and assess phenomena without rules being taught manually. Especially in the IoT era, massive volumes of time-series data are being accumulated from devices. By applying deep learning to this data and classifying it with a high degree of accuracy, further analyses can be performed, holding the prospect that it will lead to the creation of new value and the opening of new business areas. Issues Deep learning is a potent […]

IIoT and design engineers in the future

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is furthering its reach into engineering and design. Connected machines will give plant engineering operations the opportunity to identify points of inefficiency, improve upon those points, and in turn, improve profitability. To further discuss how IIoT is impacting work for design engineers, Mark Duncan, segment manager of material handling and packaging machinery for Schneider Electric’s industry business. In the future, Duncan believes engineers will have to focus on existing machine designs and their communications standards, and monitor those standards as they progress. Some examples of this include Internet protocols such as Ethernet, which promote machine-to-machine connectivity, more plug-and play-use, and a smoother transition into a plant environment. Duncan also believes that, as they look to the future, design engineers must be cognisant of the developing standards in machine-to-machine communication. “We have a customer that makes a machine for the coffee industry, and that machine is really built to be modular, connected, and is also built to be self-aware of its own capability and how it’s performing,” he said. “It’s also a safe machine, designed with safety built in. It communicates with other machines in a production line.” An example of this would be the material and product that comes into the machine, such as the one Duncan describes. That product would be processed by the machine, put into a package, and then moved to another machine, with the product cartons eventually taken to a palletizer. Using communication standards, this complete process is simpler than previous practices, where end users would have to reprogram each machine, allowing the machines to work together. Duncan expects that because of machine language standards (such as those for packaging machines using a language called PACKML) machines will be able to instantaneously communicate information in consistent data sets that could […]

The Internet of Mining Things delivers the next wave of productivity

Through IoT, this next level of optimisation can be achieved for a single mine or a federation of mines, rail and ports. The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasing the connectedness of people and things on a scale that once was unimaginable. The magnitude of this evolution is momentous with more than 80 billion Internet-connected devices projected to be in use in 2024, up from less than 20 billion in 2014. When we then couple the data produced, and processes involved, in the interaction of things-to-things and things with people what results is a powerful model upon which to drive the digitisation and transformation of companies, industries and whole nations. The ability to use standard Internet technologies, such as unmodified Ethernet, throughout, from the enterprise all the way down to individual field devices enables new levels in connectivity for people, processes, data and things, ultimately providing greater productivity, better utilisation of assets, and improved decision-making to industrial companies. According to Michael Boland, distinguished systems engineer at Cisco, “The IoT is connecting people in more relevant, valuable, and meaningful ways; delivering the right information to the right person or machine in real time. Data is being leveraged in more useful ways for better decision-making. It has applicability across all markets; private sector and governments.” The mining industry has a lot to gain from the connectivity that the IoT delivers. Mining operations around the world are on an automation curve – they are applying technologies processes to automate their key functions to gain efficiencies in production, however these initiatives are often focused and restricted within production silos. “We see a significant number of mines that have data locked away in individual systems but now want to federate that data together, instigate new processes, involving their people in new ways to achieve better […]

Smarter sensing for the Internet of Things

In the picture:A test chip for a sensor node processor based on cognitive sensing technology. A 50-cent coin has been placed next to the chip for size comparison. A sensor node processor for networked sensor applications achieves ultra-low power consumption by using ultra-low voltage operation, hardware acceleration and cognitive sensing techniques. The Internet of Things (IoT) describes devices and applications that gather and distribute data for everyday life. Sensor devices and processes that will underpin the IoT need to be small, versatile and energy efficient. Now researchers at Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have developed a sensor processor node that is capable of intelligent sensing while using ultra-low levels of power. IoT applications range from biomedical signal processing to uses in vehicle-status monitoring and environmental sensing. Most IoT devices are tiny in size, which means that they typically consume only a small amount of power. This is particularly challenging for processors that sample the information from sensors and analyse the data, as their power demands, in contrast, are intense, explains Xin Liu and Jun Zhou from the research team. “The limits on the space for power sources such as batteries leads to a critical power budget at the level of the micro Watt,” says Liu. “At this level, processor design becomes extremely challenging if we are to achieve ultra-low power consumption whilst maintaining comprehensive functions.” Typically, the lower the operating voltage, the lower is the overall power consumption. The Institute of Microelectronics research team adopted ultra-low voltage circuitry and system design techniques, and further developed diverse hardware accelerators for high-energy efficient signal processing of sensor information. A further key advance is possible by taking a more intelligent approach to the signal acquisition, by utilizing the knowledge about the specific sensor signals. In many applications, sensor signals take the […]

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