OMRON Corporation (HQ: Shimogyo-Ku, Kyoto. President and CEO: Yoshihito Yamada) announced today the development of a machine automation controller equipped with a machine learning artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm. The first of its kind in the industry, this AI-equipped controller achieves real-time integration between the programmable logic controller function, which controls production lines and equipment changing in microseconds on factory floors, and the AI processing function. Using OMRON’s extensive range of sensors to monitor the status of equipment and processes, the controller safely regulates them before an irregularity can occur. It predicts unusual movements of machinery based on the causal model that the built-in AI has been made to learn.
As recent years have seen an ever-increasing shift toward small-lot production for a wide array of products and flexible production at optimal locations around the globe, the need has continually risen for the introduction of AI and the internet of things (IoT) on manufacturing floors. It allows manufacturers to contain the impact of skilled worker shortages and surging labor costs, while simultaneously increasing equipment utilization and achieving stable production of quality products. To leverage data at manufacturing sites where control is performed in microseconds, high-speed and high-precision data gathering (e.g. position, vibration, and temperature data) and precisely associating them with time data is required.
Analyzing and utilizing combined data allows OMRON to quickly predict possible machine errors and prevent equipment stoppage, as well as deterioration of product quality. Meanwhile, rapid diffusion of IoT has brought along with it a huge quantity of data, making it difficult to transmit all data to the cloud for analysis by AI, regardless of how far network bandwidth is extended. Another bottleneck in introducing IoT to manufacturing floors is caused by the response delay resulting from bilateral data transmission generated when data from sensors, motors, and other devices must be transmitted to and from the cloud, even though instantaneous response is crucial at such manufacturing sites.
In its search for solutions to such issues, OMRON introduces “intelligence developed through ITC” to manufacturing floors. OMRON incorporates the knowhow of skilled workers into the controls of equipment and processes. This is accomplished by utilizing a broad range of factory automation (FA) equipment that enables IoT-capable automated production or implements optimal AI algorithms in such equipment. Developed under this concept, the AI-equipped controller is meant to immediately detect signs of equipment irregularity. The machine automation controller’s AI algorithms allow it to learn the repeated movements of the equipment from precise sensing data, which enables feedback to status monitoring and real-time control of machines.
