The fourth and fifth industrial revolutions have been born from the convergence of technologies as versatile and popular as artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT). Thanks to this conjunction, the so-called “edge computing” has been developed, which uses computing power to help make the right decisions on the ground.
Among the advantages of this computing, they include lower latency – the time that elapses between a stimulus and the response – and greater security, as analysts emphasize. And another innovation that has caught the attention of experts is “embedded systems,” which generally include a sensor, computational intelligence, and a means to communicate with the Internet.
The fifth generation of mobile telephone technology, that is, 5G, offers a speed higher than 4G, without which many of the innovations of Industry 5.0 would not be possible. In recent months, 5G has been moving towards the industrial internet of things. Again, in these cases, latency is crucial, since devices in factories prepared in this way interact very quickly.
The key to the alliance between artificial intelligence and the industrial internet of things is the ease with which patterns are recognized and learning from experience to develop and distribute all types of products and even services. And this qualitative leap is triggered by the application of edge computing. By operating locally, the need to transmit huge amounts of raw data over the network is eliminated.
This operation prevents the information in question from being hacked by cybercriminals or by agents hired by competing companies. The performance of industrial equipment can be studied in real time, making it possible to predict when a machine will require maintenance and until when it will fail and break down.
One of the best examples in this field is in the supervision of water pipes. Companies like Madison Technologies have perfected an automatic control method that, with human inspectors, would be unaffordable due to its prohibitive cost. Leaks can be detected before they occur, impacting the preservation of essential resources and the prevention of natural disasters.
