:::

【2020 Application Example】 Latitude X Huayan Technology Jointly Develop AI for Predictive Maintenance of Machinery, Improving Utilization Rates of Hemodialysis Machines

Taiwan has the highest rate of dialysis in the world! Keeping dialysis machines functioning properly is the top priority for reducing risks

According to the latest annual report released by the US Renal Data System (USRDS), Taiwan has the highest dialysis rate in the world. In 2018, acute and chronic kidney disease patients spent NT$51.378 billion on health insurance, and the number of dialysis patients in the country surged past 90,000!

When kidneys function no longer, replacing kidney function either through transplantation or dialysis is necessary, with about 90% of patients choosing hemodialysis (commonly referred to as 'dialysis'); Patients generally require treatment three times a week for 4-5 hours per session at specific medical facilities (hemodialysis centers, commonly known as 'dialysis centers'), which is a high-risk medical procedure.

During hemodialysis at the centers, unexpected events directly affect patient medical safety and quality of treatment, consuming medical resources and manpower to resolve or correct. Reducing these incidents during hemodialysis is a major requirement for these centers. The two most common incidents involve dialysis equipment problems and patient complications, with most technical issues attributed to the hemodialysis machines.

Hemodialysis machines are structurally complex and prone to safety hazards

The design of a hemodialysis machine is intricate and precise, featuring an integration of fluid mechanics, electronics, mechanics, and optics in its extracorporeal circulation system. Due to long operating hours, the machine is susceptible to thermal and chemical corrosion, causing wear and tear and potentially impairing the entire dialysis system's operational performance, with multiple risks and safety hazards.

When a hemodialysis machine experiences an 'event,' whether minor or major, reactive maintenance is triggered. Not only do patients have to switch to an alternate bed, but during the approximately 2 to 3 days of maintenance downtime, the affected beds become unavailable, thereby reducing the number of available beds and causing scheduling issues for already booked patients.

Any 'event' involving hemodialysis machines is a significant concern for centers, thus improving the equipment utilization rate of these machines is a pressing issue!

Using AI for Predictive Maintenance to Improve Utilization Rates of Hemodialysis Machines

Development Workflow

▲Development Workflow

By utilizing big data and AI predictive framework to adopt a proactive 'predictive maintenance' approach instead of a reactive 'fix-on-failure' approach, it helps reduce the occurrence of irregular incidents, improving the availability of hemodialysis machines and thereby hoping to handle their malfunctions better, conserving medical resources, manpower, and time, while improving treatment quality and protecting patient life safety.

Through AI predictions, maintenance of hemodialysis machines can be categorized as 'Predictive Maintenance' and 'Real-Time Fault Diagnosis.' 'Predictive Maintenance' refers to regular checks of the machine's status using big data and an AI prediction model during the daily pre-heating of the machines, delivering health status alerts if unhealthy trends in parameters are detected. 'Real-Time Fault Diagnosis' involves analyzing data and equipment status during dialysis using the AI model to ascertain if predictive maintenance is necessary; when an issue arises, it can be diagnosed and non-major events immediately resolved.

Solution Diagram

▲Solution Diagram

With an innovative service mode, promoted across dialysis centers in Taiwan or the Asia region

The AI predictive maintenance model can reduce abnormal events during dialysis, optimize on-site resources, increase available hemodialysis bed numbers, and consequently provide further safety for patients. For 'patients,' it reduces the incidence of mishaps causing harm and discomfort; for 'medical staff,' it enhances the ability to handle such events easily, improving job satisfaction and quality; and for 'hospitals,' it fosters improved medical quality, patient satisfaction, and cost savings, while minimizing medical disputes.

'Increasing the Availability of Hemodialysis Equipment' is crucial for dialysis centers. AI predictive maintenance as an innovative service model can be promoted extensively among dialysis centers with large patient volumes across Taiwan or Asia, also integrating individual dialysis statuses, including backend maintenance, dispatching, and parts inventories, planning a new cloud service operation model.

「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only. Translation date:2024-05-19」

Recommend Cases

【導入案例】巨量遙測空間數據AI分析雲端服務平台 使衛星遙測影像順利落地應用
AI Analysis Cloud Service Platform for Remote Sensing Big Data Enables the Smooth Application of Satellite Remote Sensing Images

Although satellite remote sensing images can make all surface objects visible, it still requires a lot of time and manpower to be truly applied to the industry In order to effectively solve the problems that customers face in digesting huge amounts of image data and eliminate technical obstacles for cross-domain users to process satellite remote sensing images, ThinkTron has developed an "AI Analysis Cloud Service Platform for Remote Sensing Big Data" as a new beginning for cross-domain AI applications for spatial information In recent years, in response to the impact of industrial globalization, Taiwan's agriculture has continued to transition towards technology-based and higher quality, improving the yield and quality of crops by solving problems, such as microclimate impacts and pest and disease control The demand of agriculture on images has expanded endlessly to accurately grasp the growing environment of crops In the early years when UAVs unmanned aerial vehicles were not yet popular, manual field surveys were the most basic but most labor-intensive work With the emergence of UAV drones, aerial photography operations might not be difficult, but the range that can be photographed is limited Furthermore, surveying expertise is required to accurately capture spatial information At this time, the use of satellite remote sensing data may break away from the past imagination of using image data Taiwan Space Agency TASA ODC data warehouse services In the past ten years, with the breakthrough of modern satellite remote sensing application technology, Digital Earth has become a new trend in global data collection Countries have developed data cube image storage technology, and the development of smart agriculture has become one of the largest image users Determining planting distribution is the first step in understanding crop yields Free satellite remote sensing images, powerful data warehousing support, and the team's robust image recognition technology are important supports for accelerating agricultural transformation Using satellite remote sensing image data can accelerate the development of smart agriculture However, in the past, it was difficult to extract large-area crop distribution through satellite remote sensing images, not to mention the cost If you wanted to use free information, you had to visit all websites of international space agencies, look through the wide variety of satellite specifications, and carefully evaluate the sensor specifications, image resolution, and revisit cycle After finding suitable images, you had to look at them one by one to filter the ones you need Next is downloading dozens of images that are often several hundreds of Megabytes MB each, which might exceed the capacity of your computer Also, after overcoming image access and preparing data, you must then start to confirm the downloaded image products and which bands you want, because the image you see is not just an image file jpg or png, but rather complex multi-spectral information, attribute fields and coordinate information It takes a lot of effort just to confirm the correct information Facing GIS software packages with complex functions is the start of another trouble The complex image pre-processing process and the inflexible machine learning package greatly reduce the efficiency of analyzing data After finally getting the results of crop identification, you might find that the best time for using map information may have already passed The above-mentioned complex and time-consuming satellite image processing problems are precisely the pain points of the market ThinkTron expanded from traditional machine learning to modern deep learning applications, and developed an "AI Analysis Cloud Service Platform for Remote Sensing Big Data" under the GeoAI framework, breaking through the constraints of details in the spatial information for customers Differences between the process before and after introducing the AI analysis cloud service platform ThinkTron said that Taiwan's ODC Open Data Cube system has been completed and began providing services after years of efforts from the Taiwan Space Agency TASA, formally becoming aligned with international trends The powerful warehousing technology allows users to easily capture and use image data of a specific time and spatial range according to their needs The warehouse stores multiple satellite image resources from international space agencies, including the ESA's Sentinel-1 one image every 6 days, Sentinel-2 one image every 6 days, USGS's Landsat-7 one image every 16 days, Landsat-8 one image every 16 days, and the domestic Formosat-2 one image every day and Formosat-5 one image every 2 days ThinkTron develops satellite image recognition tools based on Python Breaking free from the limitations of GIS Geographic Information System software packages, ThinkTron integrated GDAL Geospatial Data Abstraction Library based on Python, and considered computing efficiency and parallel processing when developing all tools required for satellite image processing and image recognition modeling, including coordinate system and data format conversion, grid and vector data interaction, and data intra-difference and normalization All of the tools are designed with AI applications in mind, and some commonly used tools are packaged into an open source package under the name TronGisPy to benefit the technical community ThinkTron utilized the team's understanding of satellite remote sensing images and the collected tagged data crop distribution maps to preset the image recognition modeling process, the required training data specifications, and dataset definitions This is imported into the machine learning LightGBM or deep learning CNN framework that was completed in advance, and the entire training process to be performed in the Web GIS interface, providing users with partial flexibility to freely filter images, confirm spatial and temporal ranges, select models, and adjust hyperparameters In addition to the operation of training models, it also provides historical models to output identification results, and finally displays the identification results of crop distribution on the Web GIS map In fact, agriculture is not the only industry that needs satellite remote sensing applications AI applications of spatial information have also appeared in various fields as companies in different industries aim to enhance their global competitiveness For example, surveying and mapping companies that have a large amount of map data can use the AI analysis cloud service platform to store map data while also accelerating the efficiency of digital mapping Under the severe global climate change and the risk of strong earthquakes, there is a wide variety industrial insurance, agricultural insurance, financial insurance, or disaster insurance are all inseparable from spatial information The use of remote sensing image recognition to understand insurance targets has long been an international trend AI Analysis Cloud Service Architecture for Remote Sensing Big Data

這是一張圖片。 This is a picture.
Realizing the dream of unmanned stores, Magpie Life is building the future of the smartphone industry

"The DNA of Magpie Life is not limited to vending machines We believe that vending machines combine technology, access, and humanities to bring us exciting results" This is a sentence on the official website of Magpie Life Let the vending machines bring To live a pleasant life and build a considerate, technological and sustainable future for the smartphone industry is also the original intention of Magpie Life Founded in 2018, Magpie Life launched Taiwan’s first private-brand mobile payment scan code sensor 4 months after its establishment, completing the consumption experience through screen touch The Magpie U1 smart vending machine manages the POS system and gathers data in the background, allowing consumers to synchronize with the world's new retail pace and experience a new retail consumption experience of purchasing convenience, checkout security, visual entertainment, and improved logistics replenishment efficiency Traditional vending machines lack information visibility and AI technology assists in information transparencyThis time, the Magpie smart vending machine is also equipped with AI technology to provide adjustable shelf space , a vending machine equipped with an industrial computer and a large-size touch display screen to achieve the purpose of a store-less store Magpie Life stated that the biggest problem with traditional vending machines is the lack of information visibility To check inventory, replenishment personnel must physically inspect each machine, which is time-consuming and costly When a machine breaks down, it will generally be unable to operate for a long time Most failures go unreported and are not discovered until the next restocking crew arrives to replenish supplies Then you have to wait for a service technician to be scheduled, which can take weeks Traditional vending machines lack real-time interactivity When consumers encounter problems after inserting coins, manufacturers cannot handle them immediately In addition, traditional vending machines are less flexible and cannot adapt to changes in consumer preferences Traditional vending machines have shortcomings such as limited change shopping, single payment tools, limited number of products, and few choices Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, consumption habits have shifted to contactless methods, causing the unmanned store market to heat up Generally, vending machines can only place relatively simple products such as drinks, food, etc The properties available for sale are limited The patented vending machine developed by Magpie can adjust the shelf space and is equipped with a lifting cargo elevator, which is suitable for various types of goods In addition, the machine is equipped with an industrial computer and a large-size touch display screen, which can meet the needs of advertising support at the same time It is expected to move towards a storeless store According to Magpie Life Observation, the consumer market trend in the past two years is that consumers demand convenient life, food consumption patterns value dining experiencesimple and fast, and are equipped with mobile phone-connected ordering models, and hot drinks and Fresh food delivery is the focus of two major trends The location, items sold, consumption methods and multiple payment methods are the focus of market growth for smart vending machines In terms of convenience, Taiwanese consumers still prefer to purchase vending machine food near stations, airports, schools, and businesses in business districts Various payment methods are also gaining more support from consumers, indicating that in the future, automatic Vending machines can be developed in two directions diversified items and diversified payment methods AI sales forecast technology integrates back-end management to achieve precise marketing purposesDue to the wide variety of products, it is difficult to know the performance of products under different factors such as season, market conditions , promotional activities, etc, it is easy to cause out-of-stock or over-inventory situations Magpie Life has specially developed "AI sales forecasting technology" and integrated it into the back-end management system, hoping to lock in customer purchasing preferences and intentions through data analysis In order to achieve the purpose of precise marketing, make accurate business decisions and effectively allocate limited resources The introduction of AI systems can achieve the three major goals of precise marketing, inventory management and supply chain management This system is a replenishment decision-making aid designed specifically for supply chain managers It uses AI to predict future sales demand, helping companies effectively optimize production capacity, inventory and distribution strategies Its overall system architecture includes1 Data exploratory analysis function Provides automatic value filling, automatic coding and automatic feature screening functions for missing values in the data 2 Modeling function 1 Provides model training functions for two types of prediction problems regression Regression and time series Time Series Forecast nbsp2 Supports Auto ML automatic modeling, and the best model is recommended by the system Integrated models can also be established to improve model accuracy nbsp3 Supports multiple algorithm types Random Forest, XGBoost, GBM and other algorithms nbsp4 Supports a variety of time series models exponential smoothing, ARIMA, ARIMAX, intermittent demand, dynamic multiple regression and other models nbsp5 Supports a variety of model evaluation indicators R, MAE, MSE, RMSE, Deviance, AUC, Lift top 1, Misclassification and other indicators nbsp6 Supports automatic cutting of training data sets and Holdout verification data sets, and can manually adjust the ratio nbsp7 Supports automatic model ensemble learning Stacked Ensemble, balancing function learning Balancing Classes, and Early Stopping nbsp8 Supports the creation of multiple models at the same time The system will allocate resources according to modeling needs, so that modeling, prediction and other tasks have independent computing resources and do not affect each other In the overall server space With an upper limit, computing resources can be used efficiently nbsp9 It has in-memory computing function, which can use large-capacity and high-speed memory to perform calculations to avoid reading and writing a large number of files from the hard disk and improve computing performance 3 Data concatenation function Using API grafting and complete data concatenation automation, there is no need to manually import data, improving user experience 4 Chart analysis function Provides visual charts and basic statistical values for product sales AI data analysis solutions have two major advantages 1 Entrepreneurship machines can be rented and sold at low cost to open unmanned physical stores and cooperate with the chain retail industry Through smart machines, entrepreneurs can rent and sell them at a lower cost than the store rent Cost of running a retail business Two cooperation models, machine sales and leasing, are provided, and the choice is based on the evaluation of the industry 2 Various types of products are put on the shelves Products are sold anytime and anywhere 24 hours a day Up to 60 kinds of diversified products can be put on the shelves Large transparent windows enhance the visibility of products Regular replenishment and tracking of product sales status are available, and product types can be adjusted according to needs Recently, the line between the Internet and the physical world has blurred, the way customers interact has changed significantly, and consumer demand is changing and personalized The retail industry is facing unprecedented challenges and uncertainties, and mastering data has become key AI data analysis solutions can help the retail industry quickly activate large amounts of data, create seamless personalized experiences, optimize the operational value chain and improve efficiency, and strengthen the core competitiveness of enterprises 「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only Translation date:2024-05-19」

【解決方案】優式AI智能割草機器人 搶攻高爾夫藍海市場
USRROBOT's AI Lawn Mowing Robot Enters the Blue Ocean of Golf Market

An AI smart lawn mowing robot, resembling a vacuum robot, shuttles back and forth on the 30-hectare golf course lawn for weeding This robot, independently developed and designed by Taiwanese, is equipped with the world's first electronic fencing positioning technology which utilizes high-precision GPS integrated with cloud AI computation to determine the most efficient mowing paths, targeting the lucrative blue ocean market of golf courses This AI lawn mowing robot was developed by USRROBOT, a Taiwanese startup established in 2019 Chao-Cheng Chen, the president of USRROBOT, once served as the executive vice president of one of the top five ODM tech companies in Taiwan, and specializes in software and hardware integration When he served as the chairman of the Service Robot Alliance, he knew that the service robot industry was bound grow rapidly due to declining birth rates and the growingly severe labor shortage New demand - The horticulture market is large and the has rigid demand "To develop the core technology of service robots, we must find rigid demand Looking at European and American countries, there is a shortage of labor, but demand for horticulture has increased, and there has been a long-term shortage of 7-10 of horticultural workers" Under this strong "rigid demand," Chao-Cheng Chen established USRROBOT, and the company's first product is the AI lawn mowing robot In terms of overseas markets, the United States is the world's largest horticulture market, accounting for 30-40 of the global output value It is estimated that there are about 1 million horticulture workers, but they have been experiencing a labor shortage of 7-10 in recent years and have not been able to improve the situation The main reasons for labor shortage are Aging population and gardening is a labor-intensive job, so young people don't want to do it Unlike in Taiwan, European and American countries attach great importance to lawn maintenance and have expressly stipulated in the law that heavy fines will be imposed for failing to mow the lawn Therefore, the AI lawn mowing robot has considerable market development potential The introduction of AI multi-device collaborative mowing sensor technology is expected to reduce the burden of staff maintaining the golf course The AI lawn mowing robot developed by USRROBOT is currently in its second generation Domestic universities and well-known art museums are using the latest model M1, and it is also being used by some world-renowned high-tech companies and well-known universities in the United States The company is currently involved in negotiations for subsequent business cooperation USRROBOT stated that the professional RTK system currently used can reduce the original GPS positioning error from tens of meters to about 2 centimeters, allowing the robot to move accurately outdoors After setting the boundaries, it can be easily operated using the app New application - Implementation in golf courses solves the problem of labor aging and shortage Chao-Cheng Chen further explained that the National Land Surveying and Mapping Center is a RTK service provider RTK provides the error reference map of the positioning point USRROBOT can access the positioning error value of a specific position through 4G Internet access The AI algorithm of USRROBOT reduces the general 10-20 m error of GPS to 2 cm After positioning, USRROBOT then uses six-axis accelerator positioning, gyroscopes, and wheel differential sensing devices for software and hardware integration Only by matching the wheel's movement pattern and the terrain can accurate mowing path planning be achieved The AI lawn mowing robot, which is 62 cm wide, 84 cm long, 46 cm high, and weighs only 25 kg, can set the mowing boundaries in the cloud It can avoid pools and sand pits through settings, using AI algorithms to automatically calculate the optimal path It is able to mow approximately 150 ping of grass in one hour The battery can be used continuously for more than 6 hours The battery life is currently the highest in the world In addition to general gardening companies, with the assistance of the AI project team of the Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs, USRROBOT's AI lawn mowing robot has been applied to golf course lawn mowing A well-known golf course located in Taiping District, Taichung City currently has a staff of 5 people who are responsible for the lawn, planting maintenance, and other landscape maintenance of the entire 30-hectare course However, the average age of staff is as high as 55 years old, and the golf course has been unable to recruit new staff members for a long time In view of the aging staff and the shortage of manpower, the golf course hopes to mitigate the impact with AI technology, and is therefore using AI multi-device collaborative mowing sensor technology, in hopes of reducing the burden of staff maintaining the golf course New challenges - Expert systems are needed to overcome difficulties with different grass species "This AI lawn mowing robot has low noise, low pollution, low labor costs, and is waterproof and anti-theft In the lawn mowing process, it can identify and avoid obstacles through ultrasonic sensors while maintaining mowing quality, maintaining aesthetic and consistent grass length" Chao-Cheng Chen went on to say that the most important part about golf courses is that the grass pattern should be beautiful and free from diseases and pests Based on the site survey, golf courses are mainly divided into three major areas green, fairway and rough There is no problem using the current mowing robot to mow the rough area, and it can overcome slopes within 20 degreesThe short grass in the fairway area may only be two centimeters long, and the grass types are also different, so the cutterhead design needs to be modifiedAs for the grass in the green area, the grass must be mowed close to the ground and maintained in a consistent direction because it affects the putting speed Many factors will affect the green index, and this part requires more research and testing The AI lawn mowing robot can identify and avoid obstacles through ultrasonic sensors while maintaining mowing quality The AI smart lawn mowing robot has a built-in camera that can be used to detect the health condition of the lawn Chao-Cheng Chen said that in the future, an expert system will also be introduced for early determination of whether there are diseases, pests in the lawn or whether there is sufficient moisture, and provide lawn health data analysis to customers, so that they can take preventive and response measures sooner to reduce disaster losses Chao-Cheng Chen, who is also a good golfer himself, said that golf has developed well in Taiwan However, due to weather factors, such as rainy and humid climate and typhoons, Taiwan's golf courses have harder soil and more potholes compared with top tier golf courses overseas If AI lawn mowing robots are to be widely introduced into golf courses, there are still many difficulties that must be overcome However, Taiwan's difficult terrain creates a good testing ground Once Taiwan can overcome the many problems and successfully introduce the robot, it will be able to expand to overseas markets and seize new market opportunities in a blue ocean Chao-Cheng Chen, President of USRROBOT nbsp