Taiwan-based RFID (radio frequency identification) solutions specialist GIGA-TMS has newly released its Scannel-branded RFID tunnel system designed mainly to track pre-shipment production progress at manufacturing plants.Along with the rapid development of e-commerce and logistics, diverse logistics tracking systems and apps are proliferating to help suppliers and end consumers monitor shipment volume, inventory and shipment arrival time.Brain Ma, Scannel's lead project manager, said that most RFID solutions are applied to logistics and retail aspects, but his company's RFID tunnel system is used to detect pre-shipment operations at manufacturers.The system features tunnel-type UHF (ultrahigh frequency) RFID readers and RFID tags, allowing backstage monitoring center to immediately learn which employee cutting which bundle of fabric at which machine, and to track and confirm the volume of any given product from multiple ones ready for shipment, according to Ma.With a reading accuracy of up to 99.585%, Ma disclosed, the system has been well received among overseas garment makers, especially those of high-price sports jerseys.Ma said that UHF RFID can read tags from anywhere between 1cm and 10-15 meters, much longer than the 1.5 meters allowed by low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) RFID.In the US, all the Wal-Mart supply chain partners are putting UHF RFID on their products, Ma indicated, adding that GIGA-TMS has used UHF RFID to create the world's first and only solution for tracking citizens taking public shuttle buses.
An e-paper digital signage developed by Taiwan's E Ink Holdings (EIH) in cooperation with domestic partners has been adopted by the Taipei City Government, which has installed it at a road intersection of the city since September 1.The signange features an e-paper panel designed by EIH, a mechanical base developed by Green Ideas Technology and a parking app offered by Space4car. It adopts a bistable state technology that can significantly save on power consumption, requiring only 0.8% of power consumed by an LCD equivalent.The e-paper digital signage is powered by battery, and is easy to install and remove, unlike traditional LCD displays that require a power supply company to help with power transmission engineering at much higher cost.Such boards can be applied to offer dynamic displays at parking lots, constant information updates at public buses and guided tours at tourist attractions, EIH said.
Taiwan government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has newly developed a bionic palm that can catch objects in a more agile way and can be applied to the medical sector as prosthetic hand in the future.ITRI researchers said that the bionic palm is made of carbon fiber composite that as light as a smartphone. In addition, the palm is designed based on the actual structure of human palms and features six degrees of freedom, able to catch objects like a human palm.The researchers continued that the driver device of the bionic palm is installed on the back of the palm, which can achieve more natural and comfortable connection with stumped parts.In order to enhance the catching strength of the bionic palm, ITRI adopts metal connecting rod allowing the palm to catch objects weighing over three kilograms and operate like a hand tool.The bionic palm can serve as a chucking tool especially for catching irregularly-shaped or soft objects. If coupled with mobile devices, the palm can be used for patrol services at shopping malls and livestock farms, as well as feed loading and unloading operations at product lines, according to the researchers.They indicated that the bionic palm, first unveiled at the just-concluded Touch Taiwan 2018, is expected to be fitted with smart sensors to serve as a smart prosthetic palm to benefit patients in need of such palms.Bionic palm developed by ITRIPhoto: Chloe Liao, Digitimes, August 2018
Zukku, a palm-size service robot selected to guide visitors to the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020, will be introduced to the Taiwan market for use in retail stores, restaurants and service industries, according to CEO Ryota Izawa for Japan-based Hatapro, the developer of the robot.Looking like an owl, Zukku is equipped with IBM Watson technology and AI (artificial intelligence)-based image recognition to analyze people's ages, sexes and facial expressions. In retail stores, Zukku can recognize customers' personal characteristics and such information can be used to recommend merchandise items on digital signage.Taiwan will be the first overseas market for Hatapro, Izawa said at Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show in Taipei during August 29-September 1.Palm-size service robot ZukkuPhoto: Chloe Liao, Digitimes, September 2018
New Taipei City, the largest municipality in northern Taiwan, has been selected by Intelligent Community Forum, an international organization, as one of the global top-7 smart cities for three consecutive years due to its achievement in promoting application of smart city solutions to its administration and services, deputy mayor Yeh Hueh-ching said during a recent interview by Digitimes.The large population of nearly four million people of diverse background and the big gap in urban and rural developments have been motivating the government to enlist smart city slutions to tackle its problems and provide services, Yeh explained.Smart city hall and energy managementThe city hall is highly automated, including its lighting, air conditioning, ventilation, and elevator systems. Air conditioning on each floor is adjusted based on the estimated number of users via monitoring the use of elevators.The city is experimnting in two of its districts smart micro-grids which feature integration of rooftop PV systems, small wind turbines, energy storage systems and smart energy management systems for adjustable power supply. Such micro-grids enable stable power supply when communities suffer power outage or shortage during peak-load hours. The city also monitors power use in each building and household, understanding their power consumption for reference in energy saving education.Private fundingDdue to insufficient budgets, the city has adopted a PFI (private finance initiative) model to replace 220,000 mercury vapor streetlamps with LED ones in three years without spending any government money. The LED streetlamps save power consumption by 185 million kWh a year, equivalent to carbon reductions by 96,000 metric tons. Many of the LED streetlamps are smart ones equipped with air quality sensors for cloud computing-based detection of air pollution.Many municipal elementary schools have adopted a PFI model to install LED lighting systems. LED lighting suppliers are accepting the PFI model that gives them opportunities of valuable experiments, Yeh explained.PV-powered e-paper bus stop displaysWhile the city is promoting smart bus stop displays, it is difficult to install such displays in remote areas, especially those in the mountains, because of supporting power supply systems. Thus, the city has cooperated with Chunghwa Telecom to install electronic paper (e-paper)-based smart bus stop displays with small PV modules for charging.An e-paper-based smart bus stop display consumes power of only 63Wh daily, much lower than 630Wh for a regular one, and a single charge is enough for the display to run 14 days. And there is no need to dig up roads for laying power conduits. E-paper-based smart bus stop displays are currently in trial run in two remote areas and will be installed in others later.Cross-boundary bus servicesTo facilitate residents commuting to and from neighboring areas, such as Taipei City, the New Taipei City government has developed a bus app allowing users to customize their own commuting routes by specifying the time, the origin and destination. The app, which works on a ride-sharing concept, will then propose the route, waiting for others to subscribe to it. Once 20 people subscribe to it, the bus operator managing the app will start providing the customized service for those subscribers within 20 days.The customized service is characterized by fewer bus stops and more direct routes based on passengers' needs. The first customized bus route came into operation in 2015 and there are now 15.Smart day care centers and othersThere are 56 city-commissions public day care centers in New Taipei. The city government will encourage them to upgrade to smart operations via cooperation with high-tech companies. Smart day care centers will feature real-time monitoring of indoor temperatures, humidity and air quality as well as smart management for children's health.The main municipal library has adopted facial recognition to manage the lborrowing of books. Facial recognition is also used in three small unstaffed smart libraries.Capitalizing on big data analysis of 1.47 million entries of information concerning high-risk families, the city has developed portable risk calculators to help social workers make immediate assessment of risks and give early warning for possible family crises, Yeh said. The city also has established a social security network for assisting families with high-risk children and teenagers by integrating 10 of its departments, private organizations and groups. The network has so far assisted 117,500 such families, he noted.Other smart city solutions include cloud computing-based online teaching platforms for use by very small primary schools and smart farming, Yeh noted.New Taipei City has served as a site for experiments for many smart city solutions, some of which have been adopted by others after successful runs in New Taipei, Yeh said. For example,the smart library solution has been introduced to cities in China and the smart LED streetlamp solution to cities in other Asian countries, Yeh noted.Commenting on the challenges in promoting smart city solutions, Yeh indicated that they should be based on innovative ideas and system integration, and it is important to have everyone motivated, which, however, is not easy.New Taipei City deputy mayor Yeh Hueh-chingPhoto: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, August 2018A rooftop PV system as part of a micro-grid in a large communityPhoto: New Taipei City governmentAn e-paper-based smart bus stop display equipped with a PV modulePhoto: New Taipei City government
3D machine vision is increasingly applied to production lines as it can achieve fast and accurate vision that human eyes can hardly do, and a typical application is seen in an automated biscuit packaging line demonstrated by Taiwan's Hiwin Technologies at the just-concluded 2018 Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show.Hiwin's automated biscuit packing line can package120 biscuits per minute, with delta robots adopted to conduct fast and accurate biscuit packing movement. Delta robots, a kind of parallel robot featuring three arms connected to a universal joint at the base, are widely used in picking and packaging in factories.The delta robots at Hiwin's biscuit packaging line are fitted with 3D machine vision to accurately recognize objects, with an object-catching accuracy reaching up to 99.5%, the company said.At the show, Hiwin also showcased a six-axis robot with integrated 3D vision function, able to agilely pick tools from deep boxes for use at production lines.
Unmanned factories are usually considered the ultimate achievement in smart manufacturing but they are actually rare because key technologies needed to construct them far complicated than imagined.Progress in realizing the vision of completely automated production is not as smooth as originally expected, and in fact, unmanned factories are likely to be in decreasing demand with human-machine collaboration favored more for its flexibility.Unmanned factories are intended to completely replace humans with automated machines to reduce labor cost and hike production efficiency and product quality. But such an approach is built on the assumption machines can do better than humans.Obviously, robots cannot match humans in intelligence for the time being and machines lack the level of human sensing capability. Many vendors have integrated robotic arms with machine vision and force sensors to give them capability of precise collaboration between eyes and hands, but developers robots need tactile sensing to further hike efficiency.Robots also lack human adaptability. They are unlike humans who can adapt themselves to unpredictable changes in the surrounding and predict what is going to happen based on observation. Currently, most robots in use can work nimbly but there is not yet competent AI (artificial intelligence) technology to support them.The lack of flexibility is a key issue for robots, said Alan Chen technical support manager for Siemens PLM Software. When unexpected changes happen to manufacturing, or when new products come into production, manufacturers have to design production lines and place machines anew or adjust robot calibration. While completely automated production lines can effectively reduce labor input, for more complicated production lines, unpredictable mistakes are more likely to happen. Since robots are not yet capable of flexibly coping with such conditions, it may incur cost continually to solve problems.According to Masaru Takeuchi, general manager for Intelligent System Research Center under Omron, manpower, money and time to be spent on adopting robots are far more than imagined, with engineering cost likely to be 3-8 or even 20 times hardware cost. In addition, robots need to be maintained. As robots entail high total cost and are not flexible enough to meet production purposes, the benefits of using robots will diminish along with decreasing product lifecycles, which contradicts the mainstream trend in development of manufacturing.If manufacturers need mixed production lines or flexible production for diverse product models each in small volumes, basically they will not choose unmanned factories with 100% automated production lines because such a choice would incur higher production cost, Chen said.In comparison, 100% automated production is likely to be suitable for highly standardized products with production lines infrequently adjusted. Production of automobiles was previously thought to be suitable for total automation, but Daimler and BMW, for example, have instead incorporated collaborative robots at production lines to maintain flexible operation based on human labor, and have robots do dangerous, dirty and heavy-duty work in place of human labor.Collaborative robots change the interaction between humans and machines, allowing both to create as much respective values as possible.But collaborative robots are by no means limited to collaboration with human labor; they can be used in dark factories of a new type because such use is flexible, easy and inexpensive, Denmark-based Universal Robots (UR) has pointed out.UR recommends that small- to medium-size or startup manufacturers use automated production like a dark factory for manufacturing processes that are unsafe to workers, such as those involving very high temperatures or toxic gases, by adopting collaborative robots. In addition to the type of dark factories, collaborative robots can collaborate with workers in daytime and work independently during workers' absence at night, becoming another type of dark factories.
Taiwan makers are highlighting their robust prowess in robot production and smart manufacturing systems at the 2018 Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show running August 29-31 in Taipei, by unveiling their latest smart production solutions, and there are many iconic exhibitors such as Hiwin Technologies, Mirle Automation, Gallant Precision Machining, Compal Electronics and Nexcom International.As the most representative Taiwan maker of robots and automation equipment, Hiwin showcases a variety of Industry 4.0-based automation systems, including automated equipment for semiconductor uses; mechanical robotic arms incorporating vision systems and sensors for handling grinding, packaging and graving; smart ball screws, high-performance direct drive rotary table, and smart automation components.Besides industrial-use robots and smart manufacturing solutions, many firms also display service-oriented robotic applications. Taiwan Shin Kong Security, for instance, has displayed robots to support smart living security, and healthcare-use robotic arms designed to help nurses transfer patients and intelligent walking aids can also be seen at the show.Taiwan Intelligent Robotics exhibits customized robots for use at recreation, dinning, and biotech fields, while Arobot Innovation also showcases small-size robots that can accompany little children at home.
Taiwan-based Anchor Tech, a provider of smart buildings control systems, is actively striving to apply its control, monitoring and maintenance solutions to commercial properties including Carrefour, RT-Mart, and convenience stores, so as to keep the premises in an optimal operating state through predictive maintenance, according to the firm's CEO Duncan Huang. Huang said in the IoT era, the niche market for startups like his company, founded in 2010, rests with the space for integration, flow optimization and maintenance services, which accounts for 5% of business opportunities which big enterprises can hardly tap as they are busy developing, producing and selling products.In terms of smart illumination, he said, radar sensors and LED driver can be combined to allow indoor lights to automatically switch on and off, or to detect sunlight brightness at signage boards to determine where to switch on or off lights and luminance. As to predictive maintenance, sensors can be used to collect data on the frequencies and waveforms of lights to accurately predict when every light will wear out, so as to reduce the cost for patrol personnel and provide customers with proper maintenance solutions.Huang stressed that his company will move to increase long-term added values for products already sold by offering maintenance solutions to customers, aiming to become a service provider and ecosystem builder rather than a product supplier.
While mature infrastructures, stable system technologies, sound supervision regulations and public acceptability are required to support the development of driverless vehicles, such vehicles for public transportation will work in three main scenarios: grid network in smart city, smart tourism in theme parks, and shuttle services in remote areas, according to Ting Yen-yun, president of 7Starlake, a Taiwan startup dedicated to developing smart ride-sharing shuttle buses.Ting said that public transportation highly relies on the support of good road networks, and only after the network coverage reaches a certain scale can efficient transportation be achieved. He continued that autonomous-driving minibuses can be applied to build virtual road networks and sharply reduce the lead time and cost for public transportation.In terms of smart tourism application, Ting noted, the mini buses used in amusement parks must boast smart mobility, digital experience and ride-sharing functions, with AR (augmented reality) technologies applicable to mark the locations of scenic spots and introduce the natural landscapes and attractions.Driverless vehicles can also be applied for flexible shuttle services in remote areas, where maintaining a fixed transportation route usually involves unaffordable costs. Automated-driving minibuses can also help bring medical services to remote countryside, Ting continued.
