Archives for September 22, 2016

Honeywell launches industrial internet of things service to ‘improve plant performance’

September 22, 2016 by David Edwards

Honeywell says its new cloud-based IIoT service helps increase plant utilization and performance and avoid production interruptions

Honeywell UOP has launched a new software-based service designed to allow refiners and petrochemical and gas processing plants to improve performance.

Honeywell UOP’s new Connected Performance Services (CPS) business leverages the Industrial Internet of Things to tap Honeywell’s deep process knowledge, design expertise, and understanding of catalysis with next-generation software platforms from Honeywell Process Solutions, the leading provider of software-based solutions for the process industries.

Zak Alzein, vice president for CPS, says: “This cloud-enabled service makes plants smarter and more responsive.

“Problems that caused plants to be less efficient or less productive and that went undetected for weeks or months now can be resolved quickly and proactively, and decisions that used to take days now can be made in hours. For many plants, the avoidance of downtime and suboptimal performance, and better agility, can be worth millions of dollars per year.” [Read more…] about Honeywell launches industrial internet of things service to ‘improve plant performance’

Your next nurse could be a robot, say scientists who trained one

September 22, 2016 by Sam Francis

Robots can successfully imitate human motions in the operating room, claim scientists

The nursing assistant for your next trip to the hospital might be a robot. This is the implication of research recently published by Dr Elena De Momi and colleagues in the open access journal Frontiers in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

Dr De Momi, of the Politecnico di Milano, in Italy, led an international team that trained a robot to imitate natural human actions. De Momi’s work indicates that humans and robots can effectively coordinate their actions during high-stakes events such as surgeries.

Over time this should lead to improvements in safety during surgeries because unlike their human counterparts robots do not tire and can complete an endless series of precise movements. The goal is not to remove human expertise from the operating room, but to complement it with a robot’s particular skills and benefits. [Read more…] about Your next nurse could be a robot, say scientists who trained one

Advanced driver assistance systems trump driverless cars by stealth

September 22, 2016 by Sam Francis

While everyone seems fascinated by driverless cars brought to us via Silicon Valley, established suppliers of advanced driver assistance systems are quietly doing a roaring trade

The automotive industry is going through some fundamental changes, mostly because of computer technology.

The changes include higher levels of computer processing, fully driverless vehicles, greater levels of autonomy, internet connectivity, and the switch from petrol-powered combustion engines to electric.

It’s probably inevitable that the combustion engine will be gone from most mass-manufactured cars within a couple of decades, and will eventually only be seen in antique cars and supercars, although even some supercars are going electric.

Which means the road-going vehicle of the near-future will essentially be computers with wheels, connected to the cloud, and largely autonomous – or, in other words, a robot. In fact, this is what is already happening because of advanced driver assistance systems, or ADAS. [Read more…] about Advanced driver assistance systems trump driverless cars by stealth