Global waste production is set to increase by almost 50 percent over the next decade. This will entail enormous disposal costs. In smart cities, those costs will be reduced by measures including fitting out waste bins with level sensors and connectivity. This will enable them to automatically signal when they are full, and so cut the cost of emptying them.

Level sensors plus Cloud platform

It may seem fantastical, but it has already been turned into reality as part of the Smart City project in Barcelona. Waste containers provided by Limburg-based company MOBA Mobile Automation automatically transmit signals indicating that they are full and need emptying. A robust ultrasound sensor built into the lid of the container measures the level inside regardless of the contents. The signals are sent over the mobile phone network to a web-based software application operated by the waste management company. The software visualises the container levels based on a traffic light system, enabling the company to plan its collection routes optimally; so its vehicles only visit the containers that actually need emptying. Measurements and sensor data are transmitted over the mobile phone network onto the Cloud at regular intervals. The level sensor is equipped with a SIM card for the purpose. The advantage of this is that existing telecoms networks can be used to transfer the data.
A similar system is offered by Smartbin. However, the sensors which the Irish company installs on waste containers not only measure their levels but also transmit temperature and geo-positioning data to a software platform. “It is above all the level data that helps companies make big savings on collection costs.” Waste management companies no longer have to travel from container to container, as Brendan Walsh, CEO at Smartbin, goes on to explain: “Thanks to integrated route planning systems, customers in 25 countries have optimised their container emptying by focusing solely on containers that are actually full.”

Communications network for the smart city

According to Finnish company Enevo, this makes it possible to save up to 50 percent on costs. It, too, uses smart level sensors, Cloud computing solutions, state-of-the-art analysis and dynamic capacity and route planning to deliver the most cost-effective waste management plans for entire cities. “Enevo’s customers need a cost-effective, stable and operationally efficient wireless communications network in order to support this mission-critical application. Enevo’s CTO Pirkka Palomak comments: “LoRaWAN networks offer good service quality, cover large areas, support large numbers of devices, and at the same time permit very good energy efficiency for battery-powered wireless sensors such as those from Enevo.” The LoRaWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) protocol was developed by the LoRa Alliance specially for wireless battery-powered objects connected to the Internet of Things. The LoRa solution enables millions of objects to be connected over the open broadcast network at low cost. The technology facilitates long-range communications with a high degree of resistance to interference, while at the same time minimising power consumption. The system is thus particularly well suited to applications in smart cities – and not just for waste management.

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Rising levels of urbanisation are forcing towns and cities around the world to find a balance between limited resources, sustainability, and the public’s desire for comfort and quality of life. “Cities all over the world are looking to make themselves more efficient and enhance the well-being of their residents. Digitisation can help them to master the many challenges they face, such as in relation to traffic management,” comments Michael Ganser, Senior Vice President Central and Eastern Europe of Cisco. Connectivity will make the cities of the future “smart”. In smart cities, key systems and infrastructure elements such as buildings, energy, water, waste and transportation are interconnected, and the people who live in them are also linked up. Information and communications technologies are penetrating deep into the structures of both new and existing cities. According to the market research organisation Gartner, some 1.1 billion connected objects are in use around smart cities in 2015 – a figure they forecast will reach 9.7 billion by 2020. They forecast that 88 smart cities will exist as a result worldwide by 2025.

More efficiency thanks to smart roads

A small sign of what such a city might be like is provided by the “Smart Road” in Hamburg’s port district. The Smart Road, created by Cisco among others, is intended to enhance the management of resources and improve traffic flows, as well as monitoring the condition of the infrastructure and local environment. “Hamburg’s port is key to the city’s economy,” Michael Ganser points out. “That is why we are helping the Hamburg Port Authority to build more capacity by making more efficient use of its infrastructure, so as to strengthen its performance capabilities.”
The Smart Road solution comprises a range of different aspects: the traffic management system helps the port to monitor road traffic. Any congestion is automatically recorded and relayed to the Road Manager, who is able to contact the relevant agencies directly. IP-based sensors deliver real-time data on the status of mobile infrastructure, such as a lifting bridge. They enable the technical service department to plan maintenance and repair procedures accurately as well as predictively. Environmental sensors provide data to enhance analysis of environmental conditions on the port site. The “Follow Me” lighting concept also forms part of the proof of concept. The system automatically turns on a street light when someone approaches, and turns it off again after they have moved away.

It starts at home

“The majority of Internet of Things (IoT) spending for smart cities will come from the private sector,” comments Bettina Tratz-Ryan, Research Vice President at Gartner. The market research organisation predicts that city-dwellers will increasingly invest in Smart Home solutions, and that will ultimately result in the creation of the Smart City. Smart Home solutions connect single machines to each other and to the Internet, enabling new services to be offered within the connected home. That enhances comfort, safety and security, and helps to save energy. One example is a heating system which autonomously regulates the temperature around the home based on the location of the resident’s smartphone. A Smart Home can also use sensors and software to detect that the upstairs windows are open, for example, and link that information to the online weather report. The system could then automatically close the windows and lower the shutters to protect against an approaching storm.

A common language for connected objects

These are not just visions of the future; there are already lots of Smart Home products. The different solutions are not necessarily mutually compatible however. In view of that, ABB, Bosch, Cisco and LG are planning to develop a common language by which the various machines can communicate with each other. Based on the standards the consortium seeks to establish, the machines will be linked via a “home gateway” to the Internet and to a shared software platform, enabling services from different vendors to interact.

Optimising traffic flows

There are already a number of solutions for applications around the city in addition to the various home applications. Smart City applications are particularly widespread in the traffic management field. Examples include traffic routing and parking control systems, as well as traffic flow measurement. California and the UK are already implementing wireless receivers and sensors on motorways to diagnose traffic conditions in real time. Another application that is already being successfully implemented is smart parking. Los Angeles has installed sensors on parking spaces which detect when vehicles park on top of them. In conjunction with real-time traffic routing and parking management systems, this can make finding a parking space much easier. “Electric mobility, charging stations and embedded IoT will generate additional IoT opportunities in smart cities,” Gartner expert Tratz-Ryan adds. Among other measures, car-makers are investing in street lighting with integrated charging stations so as to reduce investment in charging infrastructure. Sensors identify vacant charging stations and notify users of them via on-board systems or a smartphone. “Smart cities represent a great revenue opportunity for technology and services providers (TSPs),” Bettina Tratz-Ryan continues, “but providers need to start to plan, engage and position their offerings now.”

(picture credits: Shutterstock)

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People and machines are increasingly combining to make well-coordinated teams, thanks to systems which incorporate motion detection, navigation, learning capabilities and artificial intelligence. A major example of such a system is the “da Vinci” surgical robot, which has enjoyed great acclaim all around the world. As opposed to conventional minimally-invasive surgery, which has long been practised for gall-bladder operations and appendectomies, da Vinci is able to safely handle much more complex procedures. The robot always remains under the surgeon’s control, as Professor Gerd Hirzinger, former director of the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at Germany’s national aeronautics and space research centre DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, affirms, but adds: “A tiny robot arm is able to target a biopsy needle into a brain tumour just a few millimetres in size with no shaking, and even more precisely than the surgeon’s hand.”

Service robotics in hospital logistics

Robots also do valuable work in the logistics operations of state-of-the-art hospitals, such as the Niguarda Ca’ Granda hospital in Milan. On a site covering some 340,000 square metres, 32 driverless carts operate entirely autonomously, delivering meals to wards, disposing of laundry and waste, retrieving medications from the pharmacy store, procuring medical accessories and carrying out sterilisation procedures. This means the human nursing staff are able to use their time doing work which provides better care to their patients. “The key to this high level of automation is flexible, configurable and autonomous service robotics”, explains Nicola Tomatis, CEO of BlueBotics and inventor of Autonomous Navigation Technology. “Autonomous operation within a human environment demands intelligent navigation, which is capable of working without additional infrastructure and so is commercially viable across a broad range of applications.”

More efficiency in hospital

Most operational service robots are to be found in Japan. Not only do the Japanese have a particular affinity with technology, their population is ageing at a faster rate than that of any other industrialised nation. Panasonic, for example, has developed the autonomous delivery robot “Hospi” for use in hospitals. Working round the clock, it relieves the strain on the personnel by transporting medications, medical samples or patients’ medical records. It is fitted with special security features which prevent manipulation of samples or theft of medication. The robot is able to travel on lifts on its own, and can move freely between different parts of the building. It navigates by sensors, using a programmed-in map of the hospital. It automatically evades obstacles. Selina Seah, Assistant Chief Executive Officer at Changi General Hospital in Singapore, comments: “HOSPI can help us save manpower and time in a simple and practical way.” Changi General Hospital is currently implementing four Hospi robots. “By harnessing autonomous technology like HOSPI, we can optimise our workforce and improve productivity.”

A helper for people

The Toyota Motor Corporation is also driving forward the development of a service robot. The Japanese company has presented an enhanced prototype of its “Human Support Robot” (HSR). The versatile everyday helper assists people with limited mobility of their arms and legs. By taking over everyday tasks, it enables people who need care or rely on assistance to continue living an independent life at home. The light-weight robot, standing about a metre tall, can use its flexible gripper arm to pick up objects from the floor or from a shelf and put them back again, or open and close curtains, for example. The HSR can also be controlled remotely. This means family or friends can operate the robot even when they are away from the location. When doing so, the remote operator’s face is shown on the display and their voice is heard in real time, so enabling the person being assisted to interact with family and friends.
This is important because many people are reluctant to interact with machines as helpers. In fact, the major challenge for service robots in future will be to ensure they can communicate and interact with the person they are helping. Experts predict that by 2050 sensitive robots will be capable of expressing “feelings”, and establishing relationships with humans in a natural way.

(picture credits: Panasonic Corporation)

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Making coffee, doing the laundry, tying shoes: for someone who has lost an arm and is reliant on an artificial limb, life is full of hurdles every single day. In future, intelligent artificial limbs will help people with a handicap to regain their normal movement sequences. Scientists at the Leibniz University in Hanover are researching the basic principles for equipping the technical aids with a level of sensitivity previously only seen in people. If an artificial limb detects an as yet unknown action, it searches the Cloud automatically for a similar pattern and adapts it. An app stores all movements and enables the artificial limbs of all users to learn from each other digitally.

Feeling for artificial limbs

Feeling is important for achieving an artificial hand or arm that works as closely as possible to the “real thing”: humans detect heat, surface textures, pressure and much more by feeling. The skin acts as a large, multi-modal sensor. Teams of researchers all over the world are therefore working to replicate skin artificially in order to give artificial limbs a level of sensitivity that is as close as possible to nature. The first artificial skin in the world was developed by a team led by Korean Professor Kim Dae-Hyeong from the Seoul National University: “The synthetic skin has the sense of feeling that exactly copies human skin. The skin can feel pressure, temperature, strain, humidity.” It is made up of multiple layers: the base is a soft, rubber-like material. This is covered with an ultra-thin layer made from polyimide, followed by silicon. The deformation of integrated gold threads enables pressure and tension to be measured, for example, and capacitors detect moisture. The team of researchers used the skin on an artificial hand, which was then able to shake hands, use a keyboard or hold a ball. For the skin to be truly useful, however, the sensor data must be transferred to the brain of the artificial limb wearer so that commands are carried out in real-time. To this end, the Korean researchers managed to establish a connection between the artificial skin and the brain of test animals by applying an electrode array to a nerve cord. The electrical impulses from the sensors are then sent to the nerve tracts of the artificial skin wearer. “I hope robotic limbs with this synthetic skin can be used by disabled people. And for industrial uses, it can be applied to various types of robots such as humanoid robots.” states Professor Kim.

The brain controls the artificial limb directly

The international MoreGrasp consortium is working on communication between artificial limbs and the brain. “Until now, artificial limbs have been controlled via shoulder movements. In future, we aim to make the whole process more intuitive,” explains Dr Rüdiger Rupp, Head of Experimental Neurorehabilitation at the Spinal Cord Injury Centre at Heidelberg University Hospital. “After all, our hand movements are controlled by the brain. Connections known as brain-computer interfaces are now available, which enable us to detect the intended movements via electrodes on the head. The dream, which we are now trying to make a reality, is to enable paraplegic patients to carry out hand movements using thought alone.” The special advantage of this new neuroprosthesis would be that, for the first time, patients would be able to control both hands at the same time. People with high-level paraplegia – where the elbow and shoulder function is impeded in addition to the hand function – could also benefit from the new MoreGrasp system, as shoulder movements are no longer required to control it.
Robert Greenberg, CEO of Second Sight Medical Products, and his team are also working on a direct connection between artificial limbs and the brain: they aim to develop their Argus II artificial retina further and to place an implant directly into the visual part of the brain. Until now, the bionic eye has consisted of an implant mounted on the damaged retina and a pair of glasses with a camera, which sends visual information to the electrode network in the eye via a handheld computer. To do this, the signals are converted into impulses, which are sent wirelessly via a transmitter on the glasses to the implant which cannot be felt by the wearer. This enables the patient to detect flashes of light, to differentiate between light and dark, as well as areas and movements.

The helping trousers

But technology doesn’t always have to replace limbs – often, Smart Systems simply support people with a disability. In the USA and Germany too, research is being carried out into gloves which can detect and translate the characters used in sign language. The gloves developed at Magdeburg-Stendal University can detect the bending of the wearer’s fingers using sensors, for example, and show the relevant letters on a monitor. This enables deaf people to make themselves understood with people who are not familiar with sign language. Exoskeletons are another example of “helping systems”: They not only support paraplegic patients, but also replicate the movement of the legs using motors. These exoskeletons are cumbersome and heavy, however. British researchers are therefore developing soft robotic clothing – the smart trousers are equipped with artificial muscles and are designed to support the movements of people with disabilities or elderly people. They will also detect when a person loses their balance when walking and actively counteract this loss of balance to prevent falls. The researchers are aiming to have finished their work in three years. Dr Rory O’Connor from the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Leeds is the clinical expert in the team of researchers: “We will be using very sophisticated soft materials with actuators integrated into their fibres, which can be used to move and support parts of the body.” These “motor” fibres are connected with an intelligent control system. They must be able to detect the intentions of the user, as Dr Abbas Dehghani from the School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds explains. “The system has to be able to work out what the user is trying to do; it wouldn’t be good at all if the trousers tried to help a person walk when they actually want to sit down.”

(picture credits: Shutterstock)

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Populations in many industrialised nations are getting older. This entails wide-ranging changes and problems in many different areas. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL for short) can play a key role in meeting the challenges posed by this demographic shift. AAL is an umbrella term for intelligent technologies that are integrated discreetly into people’s lives, helping them cope with their everyday routines in a wide variety of ways. A major benefit of AAL is that it can allow older people to continue living independent lives for as long as possible in their own familiar surroundings. This can greatly enhance quality of life, and maintain it at a high level well into old age.

Wide-ranging solutions for Ambient Assisted Living

Configuring a home to be suitable for an elderly person starts with relatively simple solutions, such as remote control window blind and shutters, or motion sensors to control the lights. Other solutions include communications and emergency call systems, mobility aids, household safety systems such as automatic cooker switch-off or fire alarms, as well as technical aids to help with strenuous physical activities. Smart Home solutions can also help the elderly, by automatically switching off the heating as soon as a window is opened, for example. A more complicated challenge is to detect emergencies and automatically call for help.

Critical situations are automatically detected

As one example, the “easierlife” system from the company of the same name uses contact sensors on the doors and motion sensors distributed around the home. The sensors are connected wirelessly to a base station which communicates with an app on the user’s smartphone over the mobile phone network. Intelligent analytical methods are employed to process data providing information about the resident’s behaviour in the home. This enables the system to detect critical situations automatically: the resident fails to get up at the normal time in a morning, does not return from a walk for a long time, or has been in the bathroom for hours. In such a case, a notification message is automatically sent to the smartphone of a person who can help.

Identifying changes in health status

The “Tempo” system from US start-up Carepredict operates in a similar way. However, it involves the resident wearing an armband which not only monitors actions such as sitting, walking or standing, but also the person’s location in the home. The armband works together with so-called beacons. These are small transmitters mounted on the walls which act as location trackers. The data collected from them is analysed in a Cloud application. In this way, the system learns the resident’s everyday routines, detects changing behaviour patterns, and is able to identify when they are important. This means, for example, that the resident might simply just be sleeping if he or she has been lying down for two hours in the living room. But if he or she has been lying in the bathroom for two hours, the system would notify the designated helper of a potential emergency. The solution not only provides assistance in the event of an acute emergency such as a fall, but also utilises any minor discrepancies in daily routines to deduce possible changes in the person’s health status. This might, for example, relate to how frequently an elderly person eats, or how often he or she takes a nap.
Such systems not only assure rapid response in emergencies, but also provide users with a greater sense of safety and security – a key prerequisite in being able to keep enjoying a familiar and often much-loved home in later life.

(picture credits: Fotolia: Gleam)

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The global shift to city life shows no sign of slowing down. Experts estimate that today nearly half the world’s population lives in cities, and this number is expected to rise to 70 percent by 2050. By 2025 there will be at least 27 megacities in the world with populations of over ten million people. In order to keep pace and ensure the success of economic centres worldwide, public transportation systems will have to carry more people faster and more efficiently than ever.

More driverless transport capacity

Train manufacturers believe the answer lies in using fully automated metro trains. Properly equipped rapid-transit and underground trains can travel closer together, thereby carrying more passengers in the same time than a train with a human driver is able to do. Driverless trains have already been in service in numerous cities for some years: Algiers, Paris, Barcelona, Sao Paolo and also in Nuremberg.
In automatically controlled trains, the movement authority and control commands are not indicated by signals, but are issued via data communication between the rail vehicle and the trackside equipment. A computer tracks all trains in the assigned section of line and calculates an appropriate movement authority for each train. As a result, trains are routed continuously and can run at shorter headways than when driven manually on sight of a signal. In driverless operation, the trackside computers are constantly exchanging data by radio with the computers of the higher-level system in the control centre and the computers in the train. On board the train, the automatic train control system replaces the train driver and controls the train’s speed. The computer is monitored and, if necessary, corrected by the automatic train protection system.

Control signals and passenger information via LTE

Connecting trains with one another and with the control centre by radio requires a correspondingly powerful communication network. In the world’s first live pilot trial, Huawei has teamed up with Alstom to carry out tests on a Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G multi-service broadband radio network for train control. Not only is the LTE network used to transfer the control data, it also enables passenger information systems and live streaming of CCTV images to the train.

Assistance systems protect against collisions

However, the technology is not restricted to autonomous trains – just as for cars, companies are also currently ­developing assistance systems for train drivers. Intelligence on Wheels, a company based in Gilching near Munich, offers a train collision avoidance system that is a complete departure from the traditional train safety systems. All of the components are installed inside the trains, which means the system does not require any expensive technology in the infrastructure, i.e. along the railway track. The system records all the parameters necessary for the train to avoid a collision, including the exact position, speed and also braking capacity. The key asset of the system is direct train-to-train communication based on the TETRA standard for trunked radio systems, which operates on a frequency band between 380 and 470 MHz. As soon as two trains come closer than five kilometres, they exchange information about their position on the track, speed, driving direction and so on. The localisation module consists of a multi-sensor set-up combining a GPS and a six degree-of-freedom inertial sensor. Among other functions, the system can determine the direction of travel by means of radial acceleration when driving round bends. If the system detects a critical situation, the train personnel are given an acoustic and visual warning in time to avoid a possible collision and bring the train to a stop.
Bombardier has also developed an anti-collision system. It gives tram drivers advanced warning of a potential impact with pedestrians, cyclists, other vehicles, or objects obstructing the tram tracks. The system uses a network of stereovision cameras to identify and track the movement of people or objects on or near a tram’s path. Should a potential collision be identified, the system issues an audio warning signal. The driver, or even the system itself, can then apply the brakes.

(picture credits: Shutterstock)

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Flight DL1889, early August 2015: the Airbus A320 was caught in a tremendous thunderstorm over the US state of Colorado. The plane was shaken by severe turbulence and large hailstones smashed against the fuselage, damaging the nose cone where the GPS system was housed. Not only that – the hailstones had also smashed the cockpit windshield. Run through with fine cracks, the pilots could hardly see through it. A tricky situation, yet thanks to modern electronics systems not really critical. Because the pilots were able to land their Airbus on autopilot. The plane was guided by means of radio beams from the airport; the system was able to gauge the plane’s altitude by means of the radar altimeter, get the plane under control automatically for landing, and set it down on the runway. Even after landing, the plane continued to follow the guide beam and taxied down the centre of the runway to its gate. This episode clearly shows what modern autopilot systems can achieve nowadays.

Automatic from take-off to landing

On any such automated flight, there are many different systems working together to control the location, the engines, positioning and much more. Previously, each of these systems used its own computer, whereas nowadays they are increasingly run on one and the same processor. Not only is that a saving in terms of weight, but the entire system can also perform much more complex tasks, since it has direct access to masses of data. Thus it is theoretically possible to operate a flight entirely automatically from take-off to landing. As yet, however, the idea of passenger flights without a pilot is a utopian dream, not least due to the psychological inhibitions of passengers – but small-scale applications show that it works.
For some time now, for instance, the logistics company DHL has been testing microdrones as a means of delivering packages. DHL’s Parcelcopter has already passed tests in which it has made fully autonomous flights of about 12 kilometres on a regular route from the German mainland to the island of Juist. The mail order company Amazon also plans to use drones for shipping smaller deliveries. Something that at first sounded like a marketing gimmick is meant seriously: in March 2015, the US aviation authority gave the company a certificate of airworthiness for an experimental unmanned aircraft. Then, in April, the group applied to patent a drone. The unmanned aircraft described in the application will have eight rotors and will be able to pick up goods automatically from a place of transshipment, as well as calculate the route to the recipient. The recipient will not need to be tied to a fixed location. Instead, the delivery drone will bring the package to wherever the recipient is currently located. According to the patent application, the drones will be able to track the location of the person by pulling data from their smartphone or other devices working with GPS or on a Wi-Fi or mobile communications network. The Amazon drones will also be able to talk to one another, exchanging weather data or traffic information in order to update their routes in real-time. However, as yet the entire project is still in the early test phase. Years may pass before Amazon is able to send orders via the “Prime Air” delivery service.

Mini helicopter completes missions autonomously

In other areas, however, drones capable of autonomous flight have already been in use for some time. Take, for example, the Camcopter S-100 Unmanned Air System from the Austrian company Schiebel: controlled by a triple-redundant on-board computer based on proven algorithms and flight control methods, the S-100 can fly missions fully autonomously from take-off to landing. Redundant Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) ensure highly accurate navigation and stability at all stages of the flight. Missions are programmed and controlled at the click of a mouse via a graphical user interface, while camera images are transmitted to the control station on the ground in real time. The potential uses of these helicopter drones are manifold.

Saved from the sea

An S-100 is currently being used by the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) to save refugees in distress at sea. MOAS, a registered non-profit charitable organisation based in Malta, owns a 40-metre-long vessel named Phoenix, that is used for the rescue of refugees at sea. Stationed on board this ship is the S-100. The S-100 will serve to considerably extend the viewing range of the Phoenix beyond the limit of the horizon. The camera on the unmanned helicopter delivers daylight and infrared imagery in real time to the MOAS team. Refugee boats can now be located by day and night, even in rough sea conditions and at a long distance away. Another example of how Smart Systems in flying devices can help to save people’s lives …

(picture credits: Deutsche Post DHL Group)

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Agricultural machines are increasingly being equipped with intelligent technologies to communicate with each other and to automatically coordinate working processes. As a result of this, the task of data management for improving efficiency throughout the production process is becoming more challenging,” emphasises Thomas Böck, Executive Board Member responsible for technology and systems at Claas. Joining forces with GEA Farm Technologies, Amazone and the new software company 365FarmNet, the agricultural machinery manufacturer has developed a system to digitalise farm processes across the board from the field to the barn.
Even as early as the sowing stage, application maps based on satellite data ensure that the seed is applied in such a way as to produce the best possible crop growth. A telemetry system records the work actually carried out. The machine settings are also optimised on an ongoing basis. Weather data provided by agricultural management software helps farmers to adjust their daily work schedule to the weather conditions. Thanks to a plant sensor, farmers can also precisely determine the nitrogen requirements of their plants so that only the quantity of fertiliser that is actually needed is then applied.

Autonomous vehicles on the field

It may be a dream for the future where passenger vehicles are concerned, but in agriculture it has long been a reality: autonomous vehicles that can till the land even without a driver. The Danish company Kongskilde Industries, for example, has developed the Vibro Crop Robotti, a vehicle to which different forms of working implements can be attached. As a result, the robot is capable of high-precision seeding and mechanical weed control, especially where crops are sown in rows. Farmers use fewer resources to get higher yields and – thanks to sensor-based measuring technology – protect the environment with targeted fertilisation and the use of fewer chemicals. “The technology in agricultural robotics is very advanced,” explains Ole Green, Head of Strategic Development at Kongskilde. “In the next few years, a number of new products will show up on the market that will increase automation in plant production.”
And that despite the fact that pollution, changing natural and weather conditions and a combination of indoor- and outdoor areas of application place many additional demands on the robots used in agriculture. Sensors, actuators, mechanical elements and control technology have to be more resilient to shocks and environmental influences than in the factory warehouse. Nonetheless, today there are a lot of Smart Systems already on the market for agricultural use.
Take, for example, the Robovator for selective hoeing in row crops from the Danish company F. Poulsen Engineering ApS. Digital cameras recognise weeds based on the height of the plant and send a pulse to the hydraulic tines, and the hoeing tools swivel in and out. The gardener can intervene and change settings manually at any time. The Robovator has its own electrical and oil supplies and moves at speeds of up to 4 km/h, even at night, and it is particularly suitable for organic farms that want to weed their crops without chemicals. “We are moving away from weeding with chemicals and towards mechanical solutions, both in organic and conventional agriculture,” says Frank Poulsen. “This is driven by regulations on the use of herbicides and increased demand for sustainable food production.”

Maximum precision for greater efficiency

Precision farming promises even greater efficiency in agriculture. Here, for example, with the assistance of satellite, sensor and geo-information systems, fertilisation is controlled in such a way that only exact quantities of fertiliser are applied. Precision farming takes into account the heterogeneous nature of the soil and plant resources in one fell swoop and can thus contribute to the further optimisation of environmentally sound crop management. In addition, machines can be controlled with extreme precision – the latest systems are exact to within two centimetres. “Precision farming brings together many different technological applications in various stages of the agricultural value chain: from automation technology to sensors for geo-mapping to big data analysis that can improve the evaluation of climate and soil data and increase the level of agricultural efficiency,” explains Norbert Dressler, Partner at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. “All of these application areas are going to experience dramatic growth in the coming years and, as such, will attract a new, hitherto unknown breed of participants into the agriculture business, such as players from the IT and investor sector.”

Key to increased productivity

“European manufacturers are global leaders in the agricultural robotics sector,” maintains Martin Hägele from the Fraunhofer IPA. “The portfolio ranges from robots for milking and feeding and automated stall-cleaning systems to driver assistance in mobile farming machines and robotics solutions in greenhouses, fruit plantations and vineyards, floriculture and forest management.” The rapidly growing world population is also causing demand for food to increase. Using high technology in the farmer’s field is the key to increasing production. The future belongs to systems that can operate autonomously, such as driverless vehicles, laser scanners that can, for instance, scan entire crops in rows, sophisticated sensor technology that, together with high-precision GPS systems, guarantee safe and autonomous navigation, also in cooperation with people, and sensor fusion, which intelligently combines the values measured by different sensor systems.

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The orange-coloured vehicle stirs into motion with a soft whirr. Shortly afterwards, the next vehicles set off, and it isn’t long before dozens of mini-transporters are moving about the warehouse. As if steered by some ghostly hand, they head for the high-bay storage racks or rotate about their own axis. The small, driverless transport vehicles are doing their duty in the service of science: at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML in Dortmund, scientists are working to improve the logistical flow of materials and goods in warehouses using the swarm intelligence observed in ants. In the future, the transport systems will carry out all tasks independently, from the removal from the shelf through to delivery to a picking-and-packing station. The alternative to conventional conveyor technology solutions is more flexible and easier to adapt to fluctuations in demand.

Complete transparency in real time

As yet, the practical use of these mini robots in real life is still just a dream for the future. Yet smart technologies of this kind are increasingly used in logistics. Already today, cyber-physical logistics systems combine different mobile and embedded logistics elements. Components in a logistics chain of this nature can act together or act autonomously and ultimately link the virtual world with the physical world. This is associated with completely new possibilities for generating and using information – logistics processes experience transparency of a kind that has hitherto been impossible to realise. “A real-time overview of the entire supply chain is a vision that everyone in the logistics field will certainly want to see happen. When products, systems and machines provide real-time data, complete transparency is a given,” explains Hans Thalbauer, Senior Vice President for Extended Supply Chain Management at SAP.

Modules for smart logistics components

Realising this vision requires high-performance information and communications equipment. One of the most important basic functions is the automatic identification of logistics components. By giving objects unique identities, their movements and status changes can be tracked automatically. Nowadays, bar codes and radio frequency identification are used in particular. In addition to an object’s identity, it is also essential for logistics processes to know its location. Use is made in this regard of a wide variety of technologies: GPS-based solutions, systems with stereo cameras that can “keep an eye on” a number of objects, just like the human eye, or procedures that use smart antennae and wireless communication networks to determine position. Added to that, there are large numbers of sensors that make up wireless sensor networks and monitor the status – temperature, shocks and much more – of the object or goods. To transfer the data, the components are also equipped with communication modules using technologies such as Wi-Fi, ZigBee or Bluetooth.

Market-ready solutions are already in use

Logistics components equipped in this way are already available today: take, for example, the iBin developed by Würth. It independently monitors stock levels inside the bin and automatically triggers orders. The quantity, number and ordering information for the item can be obtained at bin level via the built-in camera; this is then transmitted to the materials management system at Würth Industrie Service.
Small representatives of the autonomous vehicle are also in service within logistics, for instance the Shuttle produced by the Austrian company Ylog. The vehicles are used in warehouse and transport logistics. With their on-board navigation system, they calculate and navigate through the rack system independently.

The flying inventory assistant

The use of drones may well still be a dream for the future, but scientists are already working on it: in the InventAIRy project at IML, researchers are developing autonomous flying robots that are capable of independently navigating and conducting inventory at the touch of a button. These flying assistants are designed to locate objects both inside warehouses and in the exterior area, and to track by means of bar codes and RFID chips. The robot detects how the warehouse is configured using motion and camera sensors, for instance, and can orient itself within the warehouse. GPS determines its position outside. In addition, the robot records the content of the stored items. The scientists accomplish this with the aid of optical sensors or radio sensors. “We take a look at various key problems at the same time: robustly designed, lightweight flying robots that can reliably recognise their surroundings, as well as intelligent software for their route planning and coordination,” explains the project leader, Marco Freund. “To ensure this solution is also appealing to small and medium-sized enterprises, we intentionally dispensed with the installation of an expensive local infrastructure that the robots can use to orient themselves.” The researchers want to accomplish this with the aid of intelligent algorithms. The flying objects are to prepare maps of the warehouse on a fully automated basis, and independently modify them if there are any changes. The basis for this are, for example, ultrasound sensors, 3D cameras, and laser scanners.
These are just a few examples of how combining smart future technologies with existing logistics structures and processes can give rise to completely new fields of application and efficiency potentials in logistics. In this way, future value-added processes will be even more integrated, faster, more efficient, more flexible, more robust and more customer-oriented.

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Modern production lines are typically required to manufacture increasingly customised products in small-volume batches with maximum efficiency. Rigid, inflexible and centrally controlled processes stand in the way of “customised production” which is steadily growing in importance. In Germany, the term “Industry 4.0” has been coined for the reorganisation of industrial production: the interconnection of machinery, plant, workpieces and products is giving rise to intelligent manufacturing systems capable of controlling themselves and one another with no manual intervention. Thus, in an ideal case, the workpiece already knows which customer it is intended for and carries with it all information relating to the place and time it is processed. Once the material is in the machine, it flags up any deviation from the standard process, determines when it is ready and knows how it will reach the customer. A comprehensive project of this kind has still to be realised. However, initial part-projects have already been implemented in industrial practice.

Technology offers major potential

“Industry 4.0 is more than a vision of and for the future,” emphasises Dr Verena Majuntke, Senior Solution Architect for Industry 4.0 at Bosch Software Innovations GmbH. “This technology offers major potential for machine and component manufacturers. We are already seeing new business models today that will develop further over the next few years.” The initial step is to equip components and machines with necessary Industry 4.0 features, such as sensors, actuators, machine-level software and network access. This lays the foundation for capturing relevant data from multiple machines that can be evaluated in a second step, thereby putting companies in a position to meet forecasts and automate decision-making processes. In predictive maintenance, for example, these methods are already delivering benefits by making it possible for companies to respond to maintenance requests faster and more precisely.

The essence of the smart factory

Similar concepts are also being developed under the name smart manufacturing or smart factory. Dubbed the Industrial Internet or Industrial Internet of Things, the term used in the USA covers significantly more than just industrial production. The essence of all the concepts, however, is the same: cyber-physical systems allow products, devices and objects to interact beyond classical application and industry boundaries. By connecting to the Internet and the Cloud, the physical world becomes merged with the digital world. Essentially, all cyber-physical systems are microelectronic systems with their own computing ability, communication and networking components, as well as sensors and actuators. As a result, they are able to perform all data recording, processing and output functions independently. They are integrated in the form of an “embedded system” in larger systems or objects, such as in mobile robots, pallets and components or communicating production machinery. Networked via cyber-physical systems, for example, production processes can react in real time to fluctuations in deliveries or orders.

Networking beyond all boundaries

However, cyber-physical systems are not limited to manufacturing, as Professor John Fitzgerald emphasises. The Director of Research in Computing Sciences at Newcastle University says: “They could be a mass of people with their individual smart phones, they could be all the devices in a smart electricity grid or agricultural logistics where harvests can be re-planned based on the quality of data taken from sensors on a combine harvester.” The ever-increasing networking of objects that interact beyond classical application boundaries opens the way for new network-based products and services. In future, cyber-physical systems will also make important contributions to solving society’s great challenges, such as mobility, security and health. The Quintessence of Industry 4.0 Detailed information about Industry 4.0 can be found in the 16th issue of “The Quintessence”. Download the free “TQ by EBV” tablet app to read it.

(picture credits: Shutterstock)

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