by Gary Mintchell | Feb 28, 2019 | Automation, News, Technology
More news filtering out of Barcelona and the Mobile World Conference. Someday, maybe I’ll make it there. Lots of news. This one about enhancing robotics.
In this announcement, Qualcomm has launched Qualcomm Robotics RB3 Platform. The platform is the company’s first comprehensive end-to-end robotics development platform that features heterogeneous computing architecture with support for artificial intelligence (AI) processing, additional camera, sensors, and video modules. I received this update from ABI Research.
Aside from Qualcomm’s in-house software development kits (SDK), the platform also supports Linux, Robot Operating System (ROS), and Amazon AWS Robomaker, making it very accessible to robotics creators and developers. Most importantly, the platform features integrated support for LTE cellular connectivity and future upgradability to 5G. This latter supports the talk of the week at the conference. (Not surprisingly, no talk of 6G 😉
Commercial robots are now supporting new use-cases where they need to be autonomous, agile, intelligent, and self-aware of their environments.
For applications such as last mile delivery, retail assistance, construction, tower inspection, construction and mining, robots need to support new capabilities beyond just function automation and control, for instance acquiring a high level of autonomous perception, navigation and agile manipulation capabilities in real-time. This is where platforms such as Qualcomm Robotics RB3 Platform come to play. Thanks to its support for a wide range of sensors and the ability to use these sensors to dynamically manage, control, and schedule the robots’ functions, platforms such as Qualcomm Robotics RB3 Platform provides the robot with the required intelligence and enable them to make informed decisions during their operation in line with the task expected from them.
Some Qualcomm’s competitors have already launched similar platforms; these include Nvidia’s Jetson, and Intel RealSense, although both platforms have mainly focused on machine-vision applications which provide the robot a full autonomy for its operation. In contrast, Qualcomm Robotics RB3 Platform comes with embedded connectivity, enabling robots to communicate with the outside world. This ability not only allows the robot to augment the self-awareness of its environment but also provides the robot with additional capabilities including better collaboration with humans and machines.
At present, the adoption of LTE in outdoor robotics remains low. However, future potential is huge. Qualcomm may be early in the game by incorporating LTE connectivity into its platform, but this will get early adopters to commit to the hardware, with anticipation for 5G support in the future.
ABI Research estimates the shipment of robots with cellular connectivity, including LTE and 5G, to reach 950,000 units by 2027. This is a US$48 billion market opportunities targeted by robotics developers, chipset vendors, camera and sensor manufacturers, and robotics software and service providers.
5G’s low latency enables robotics vendors to host some of the existing onboard capabilities to the cloud and introduce new capabilities to existing robotics hardware. Existing onboard capabilities, such as object and people detection, path planning and optimization, can be shifted to the cloud to benefit from a larger set of data lake. At the same time, the robotics system will have access to capabilities that cannot be previously hosted on an existing system.
At present, remote control appears to be the focus, with Toyota’s T-HR3 and Naver’s AMBITEX, but the real game-changers will be conversational AI and swarm intelligence. With 5G, enterprise users will be able to connect their fleet of outdoor robots to the cloud and enjoy the performance, scalability, and flexibility of the cloud-based intelligence.
What impact the technology will have on the robotics industry in the future?
Moving forward, cellular connectivity, especially 5G, will become the de facto connectivity method for outdoor commercial robots for many reasons.
- As a global standard, LTE and 5G enjoy economies of scale. This brings down the total cost of ownership of cellular networks and the price of cellular modem chipsets, allowing robotics developers to integrate 5G connectivity with ease. This seems to be the strategy that Qualcomm is taking with its robotics portfolio, and the launch of Qualcomm Robotics RB3 Platform is certainly a step in the right direction.
- Although Qualcomm Robotics RB3 Platform does not support 5G at this stage, it lays out the foundation for augmenting the self-awareness capabilities in the future. 5G will enable robots to augment their self-awareness capabilities compared to fully autonomous robots, for instance identifying moving or static obstacles even if they are far away and not in the line of sight with the robot.
- In the future, this will enable better collaboration between robots and humans or other machines in their environments. Humans will be able to control robots from a remote distance in near real time. At the same time, a fleet of robots will be able to exchange information as they are connected to the cloud platform via cellular connectivity, and coordinate among themselves to perform a specific task or duty.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 27, 2019 | Manufacturing IT, Safety, Security, Technology
ARC’s annual Industry Forum gathering provided an opportunity rare these days of meeting with a wide variety of people and companies. Today’s post summarizes most of the rest of information gathered not previously published.
Interestingly, IIoT was not a major theme. Perhaps it underlies the other things. Most of the time we talked security and software. This round up involves Schneider Electric, Bedrock Automation, Bentley Systems, Siemens, and ioTium.
Profitable Safety for Industry
Schneider Electric has announced EcoStruxure Process Safety Advisor, an IIoT-based digital process safety platform and service that enables customers to visualize and analyze real-time hazardous events and risks to their enterprise-wide assets, operations and business performance.
Safety Advisor is built on Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure SIF Manager application for tracking and validating safety instrumented function (SIF) performance over the life of a plant. It provides a single view into the health and status of the user’s safety instrumented functions, which helps to identify potential risks and their impact on operations performance.
It also identifies the need to take corrective action via easy-to-understand performance dashboards and leading indicators for safety health and then documents the entire process using an embedded SIF audit trail that supports safety compliance.
Safety Advisor enables customers to understand their risks within minutes, and then act decisively to drive better business results.
Bedrock Automation
Albert Rooyakkers, Bedrock Automation CEO, pointed to advances with Bedrock’s offering including “Zero Cost Software”, having an OSA Proxy, using MQTT Sparkplug-B secure, Role-Based access control, and a partnership with SI firm Wood Group.
Wood’s automation and control group will deliver Bedrock Open Secure Automation (OSA) to its clients in energy and industrial markets. Wood has active membership in The Open Process Automation Forum, which is focused on the development of a standards-based, open, secure, interoperable process control architecture.
“This partnership centers on combining our diverse capabilities and innovative solutions in automation with Bedrock’s OSAtechnology to bring open and secure systems to our clients, advancing our position as a world leading automation providerand bringing greater cyber protection to our client’s projects,” said Jeff Shannon, Senior Manager of Strategy and Development in Wood’s automation and control group.
Planning and Design Assessment Solutions for Grid Modernization
Bentley Systems announced availability of OpenUtilities DER Planning & Design Assessment Solutions that provide decision support and cost-based models and simulations for Distributed Energy Resources (DER) integration.
In partnership with Siemens’ Digital Grid business unit, OpenUtilities Solutions for DER empowers electric utilities, electricity suppliers, and distribution network operators (DSO) with software applications to analyze, design, and evaluate DER interconnection requests through desktop and cloud-based services, while supporting the reliability and resilience of network operations.
The solutions generate an electrical digital twin for utilities – a GIS digital twin that enables owner/operators to more efficiently model the grid for decentralized energy without compromising safety and reliability. Digital twins can provide huge efficiencies in grid operations by streamlining DER interconnection applications with optimized workflows to better assess operational impacts, long-term strategic scenarios and investment decisions.
OpenUtilities Design Optioneering advances OpenUtilities Analysis one step further with cost-based decision support for planning and designing complex utility networks with DER. The application provides the ability to analyze both planned and existing infrastructure, optimize equipment sizing, and estimate materials and labor costs for DER projects. This helps utilities minimize design construction costs associated with DER and streamline the DER interconnection process with detailed cost estimation included with the impact analysis studies.
ioTium
Finally, I talked with Ron Victor of ioTium. The product consists of a soft node on, for example, a Dell Gateway device providing baked-in security. It runs as server in cloud enabling easier deployment.
ioTium’s IoT network isolates IT and OT network and data, preventing IT traffic from touching OT traffic and thus eliminating the possibility of backdoor threats. Further, ioTium isolates data streams from different sub-systems, preventing a compromise on one sub-system from affecting any other sub-system.
ioTium’s virtualized edge platform enables deployment, update and upgrade of edge services across thousands of remote sites in one click from the cloud, making analytics, DPI, machine learning, encryption, compression and more possible closer to the data source.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 26, 2019 | Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, Networking, Technology
The world is in Barcelona at the Mobile World Conference (except for me). But that’s OK, I’m seeing plenty of news. Much of it relates to the Edge. And as 5G heats up, expect that to emphasize compute at the edge even further. (Talk of 6G is best left for politicians who by and large are not technical…)
This news comes from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) where VP and GM Tom Bradicich has been using Twitter to tease this week’s announcement. HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System designed to help communication service providers (CSP) capitalize on data-intensive, low-latency services for media delivery, connected mobility, and smart cities. The system enables CSPs to process vast amounts of data in real time directly at the edge, based on open standards to boost flexibility and reduce costs. HPE also announced collaborations with Samsung and Tech Mahindra to accelerate CSPs 5G adoption, leveraging the HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System to deploy the next generation of edge-centric virtual 5G applications.
IDC forecasts that more than 150 billion devices will be connected across the globe by 2025, most of which will be creating data in real time. As a result, IDC predicts real-time data to represent nearly 30 percent of the Global Datasphere by 2025. Estimated to be 33 zettabytes in 2018, IDC forecasts the Global Datasphere to grow to 175 zettabytes by 2025.
To deliver new services that tap into this massive growth of real-time data, CSPs must transform their telecommunications network edge towards standard IT systems and software-defined architectures, such as virtual radio access networks (vRAN) and virtual cable modem termination systems (vCMTS). The open-standards-based HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System was therefore developed as a cost effective replacement for CSPs’ current proprietary edge systems, with enhanced performance and versatility for data-intensive real-time digital services. Additionally, the HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System’s unique design delivers high performance and ultra-low latency for the most demanding use cases, including media streaming, IoT, artificial intelligence, and video analytics, in a compact and ruggedized form factor, equipped with edge-optimized serviceability and remote systems management.
“CSPs have come a long way in virtualizing their networks. As this continues, the distribution of converged communications and compute capacity throughout the network will accelerate lower costs and improve service”, said Dr. Tom Bradicich, Vice President and General Manager, Converged Servers, Edge and IoT Systems, HPE. “The HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System delivers the capabilities of closed proprietary systems and more, but on an open-standards platform, combined with proven data-center class IT.”
The EL8000 delivers the capabilities of closed proprietary systems but on an open-standards platform
Designed for the real-life challenges
The massive growth of data volumes requires that CSPs deploy high-performance edge systems in their cell sites, often in remote and harsh environments. Moreover, this infrastructure must support many workload and quality-of-service requirements for which tailored slices of the network are employed. The HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System delivers an combination of capabilities to meet these challenges, including:
- Compact and ruggedized design optimized for harsh cell-site locations – Exceeding the requirements of industry standards NEBS and ASHRAE class 3 and 4, the system is resistant against hazardous environmental influences like heat, shock and vibration, as well as failover, supporting continuous operation between 0 and 55 degrees Celsius. The system can run rack mounted or stand-alone in any space available, with either a front-to-back and back-to-front cooling design.
- Low-latency, high-performance system design powers data-intensive applications at the edge – The single-socket design, equipped with high-end Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors, reduces latency and energy consumption. System components can be combined, scaled and hot-swapped to meet changing demands, supporting, among others, NVIDIA® Tesla® GPUs, FPGAs from Intel and Xilinx, NICs from Intel or Mellanox, up to 1.5TB of memory and 16TB of storage.
- Modular blade and chassis options for use-case flexibility – With a range of depth and width options for blades and chassis, the system can be flexibly configured and scaled to meet new or changing use-case requirements. The flexible design allows CSPs to extend small- and micro-cell deployments, ensuring that cellular coverage can keep pace with increasing numbers of connected devices.
- One-click provisioning and remote systems management ensures continuous availability and performance in far-flung cell-sites – HPE’s proven HPE iLO 5 technology and the newly developed chassis manager software enable remote provisioning, ongoing system health monitoring, updates, and management of HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge Systems across thousands of cell sites, from cell towers to oil rigs, without needing IT expertise on site.
“Collaboration between HPE and Intel has resulted in this versatile platform for network transformation at the edge,” said Sandra L. Rivera, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Network Platforms Group, Intel. “Powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors and based on open standards, the HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System will enable high performance, flexible and intelligent networks that are required to deliver high bandwidth and low latency for edge and 5G services.”
Converged communications
HPE and Samsung Electronics Corporation (SEC) are collaborating to provide a joint edge-to-core vRAN commercial solution based on Samsung’s radio network technologies and system integration services and the HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System.
“Samsung and HPE combine their strengths in radio networks, edge systems, and telecommunications infrastructure to drive the change towards a standard-IT based and software-defined network edge,” said Wonil Roh, Vice President, Head of Technology Strategy at Samsung Network Business. “The HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System will play a key role in Samsung’s challenge to evolve our customers’ networks with 5G vRAN demanding intense low-latency.”
While some CSPs aim to deploy 5G from 2020 onwards, others may not be able to do so for a few years, potentially leaving entire regions without 5G coverage. As part of this interim process CSPs are turning to multi-access edge computing (MEC) software, which delivers many of the benefits of 5G, but using 4G LTE infrastructure. For this reason, HPE is collaborating with Tech Mahindra, a global leader in MEC software, to deliver MEC solutions based on the HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System.
“Our collaboration with HPE and the introduction of the HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System is a major step for driving a fast and smooth transformation towards open standards at the edge in the Telco and Comms marketplace,” said Karthikeyan Natarajan, Global Head, Engineering, IoT & Enterprise Mobility, Tech Mahindra. “As a leader in Telco and Comms software and services, Tech Mahindra sees HPE as ideally positioned to help us deliver significantly improved user experiences, particularly through the often-uneven transformation from 4G to 5G.”
Availability
The HPE Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge System will be available worldwide from June 2019.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 25, 2019 | Education, Leadership
A team developing a Web application named itself Curious George team. You know, the mischievous monkey who was adopted by The Man in the Yellow Hat. Curiosity defined its personality.
I thought, “How cool is that?” A constant reminder to work that particular muscle.
Ever notice little kids? Maybe from 1-1/2 to 4 or so? Take a walk with them. They are curious about everything. They’ll stop and study a leaf. Or a bug. Or a worm.
What about us? When we take a walk, do we puzzle over things we see?
What are you curious about? What would you like to learn?
What a great name for a team exploring new business ideas. Or expanded service ideas.
“I’m on the Curious George team. We’re always exploring for new ideas.”
That’s cool.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 22, 2019 | Leadership
I’d heard about Jim Collins and perhaps even read one of his books. But I’d forgotten until I listened to a podcast interview with Tim Ferriss.
I bought a couple of his well-researched books. I mean, I write alone. He had 21 researchers for Good to Great. He pursued an answer to the question “can a good company (organization) become a great one”.
Short answer, yes.
After much research, the team identified 11 companies that filled the criteria of 15 years of so-so performance, an inflection point, followed by 15 years of great performance. Timelines long enough to allow for various short-term fluctuations.
They identified several characteristics. I’ve just finished reading about the first–one that surprised the team. Leaders.
But the type of leadership that build sustainable performance. The high-ego, publicly visible leader may drive performance in the short term, but seldom does that performance last.
The good to great leaders:
- Publicity shy
- Humble–always talking about company performance not personal
- Builds a strong team first thing before strategy
- Quiet, but strong
- “We”, not “I”
- Leads a simple lifestyle (no servants, large estates, and the like)
The team researched businesses, partly because there exists a wealth of data. I’ve observed the same thing in churches and other non-profits. The flamboyant, self-enhancing leader eventually flames out.
