Move over IoT. The latest innovation in the world of sensors and connected things is here, and it’s called AIoT. Combining the power of Artificial Intelligence with the Internet of Things, AIoT is set to build the foundation of intelligent analysis. Reports expect the global AIoT market to reach $65.9 billion by 2025. For the manufacturing industry especially, AIoT holds the promise of taking the sector to unimaginable efficiency levels.
Read on as we take you through what AIoT is and why manufacturing companies should make the most of it.
What Is AIoT?
AIoT combines the machine learning capabilities of AI and the data exchange capabilities of IoT to create more efficient operations. The technology seeks to improve human-machine interactions, enhance data management and analytics, and improve decision-making. By processing and analyzing IoT-generated data, AIoT aims to enhance operational efficiency and reduce dependence on humans.
So, how does AIoT work? In AIoT devices, AI is embedded into infrastructure components that are all connected using IoT networks. Then, using APIs, the hardware, software, and platform components of these devices communicate with one another – without any effort from the end user. As soon as IoT devices produce data, AI analyzes it to unearth insights and improve efficiencies and productivity.
Experts at Bosch are using AIoT to teach vehicles to see. The camera they built for self-driving cars uses AI to ensure more reliable object recognition. This helps autonomous cars better recognize their surroundings and react to real-world driving conditions with great precision. Unlike humans, the AIoT system remains just as alert and responsive, even after a long drive. It can also cater to blind spots and trigger appropriate responses in an instant.
What Are the Top Use Cases of AIoT?
As IoT devices proliferate throughout every industry vertical, there is an increasingly large amount of unstructured machine data at our disposal. Unfortunately, most of this data is still processed with human intervention, which is what AIoT aims to resolve. With data generated from IoT systems becoming extremely valuable, AIoT allows for this data to be processed as close to the source as possible. This minimizes the bandwidth needed to transfer data, eventually helping avoid possible delays in data analysis, overcoming latency issues, and accelerating decisions.
Let’s look at some areas of the business world where AIoT offers compelling benefits:
- Smart cities: AIoT can play a huge role in the development of smart cities. For instance, the technology can analyze data from streetlights and energy meters and automatically tweak operations to improve efficiency and quality of life.
- Autonomous vehicles: For autonomous vehicles that rely on multiple video cameras and sensor systems, AIoT can be extremely beneficial. The technology can process real-time data from the road and optimize driving conditions accordingly.
- Smart homes: In the realm of smart homes, AIoT can capture and process human interaction and response continuously. The technology can then use this analysis to understand user habits and offer personalized experiences.
- Smart factories: Smart factors can make use of AIoT to flag equipment with faulty parts and enable shopfloor managers to take immediate corrective action.
- Smart healthcare: In the healthcare sector, AIoT can take data generated from medical devices and wearables and monitor heart rate and pulse levels in real time.
What Benefits Does It Offer for the Manufacturing Industry?
In the manufacturing sector, there is a constant need for people and machines to work in close interaction. AIoT aims to redefine this aspect of manufacturing and enable companies to leap into Industry 4.0. By setting the stage for optimized and adaptable manufacturing processes, the technology opens limitless possibilities of efficiency, availability, and scalability.
Building an AIoT factory can enable manufacturers to process enormous quantities of data in just a matter of a few seconds. The technology’s self-optimizing algorithms can learn to make predictions based on real-time data – without disrupting critical manufacturing processes.
The manufacturing industry, already capitalizing on the benefits of IoT, has a lot to gain from AIoT. Here are five ways in which AIoT allows the sector to create advanced facilities:
- Operational excellence. AI-integrated IoT devices can take operational levels to unimaginable levels. By analyzing data from sensors and smart systems in real time, AIoT can reveal anomalous patterns and insights. This data can then be used to adjust production processes and make them more efficient.
- Automated failure resolution: Since AIoT continuously acts on data generated by IoT devices, it helps identify points of failure. The system then makes necessary adjustments as needed and automates the resolution of failures – with no human involvement.
- Accelerated analytics: AIoT also eliminates the need for human workers to constantly analyze data generated from IoT devices. Since data is automatically processed and analyzed by AI technology at the edge, manufacturers can enable accelerated analytics with minimal error.
- Scalability: Another compelling benefit AIoT offers to manufacturers is scalability. They can easily increase the number of devices connected in the IoT ecosystem to optimize existing processes or introduce new features.
- Real-time decisions: Linking IoT with AI and machine learning can also allow shopfloor managers to draw the right conclusions. Reacting to production and engineering data in seconds can enable them to improve products and services on an ongoing basis.
The culmination of AI and IoT opens doors to a smarter, more efficient, and highly resilient technology environment. As these once separate technologies come together, they offer the advanced ability to carry out real-time analytics within IoT devices. This allows for accurate and immediate judgments and adjustments – without requiring humans (or third-party systems) to send data to AI models.
In the manufacturing industry, AIoT allows for the creation of an efficient factory shopfloor with lower latency and almost-zero bandwidth issues. By eliminating the cost, effort, and delay associated with real-time IoT data processing, AIoT is poised to carve the future of manufacturing.