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【2021 Application Example】 AI Can Make Coffee! Autonomous Coffee Roasters Relying on AI for Precise Location Setting and Cultivating Loyal Customers

Have you had your morning coffee yet?

Over the past decade, Taiwan has gradually formed a coffee drinking culture. With the advancement of AI technology, autonomous coffee roasters can now rely on AI for precise location setting while also cultivating a loyal customer base. Let's see how this is done? According to the International Coffee Organization (ICO), Taiwanese consume approximately 2.85 billion cups of coffee annually, with the coffee market in Taiwan estimated at 80 billion TWD, growing about 20% each year.

In recent years, the 'drinking coffee' culture in Taiwan has become synonymous with popularity, with coffee being the most frequently chosen daily beverage by 65% of the population. Coffee enthusiasts, particularly the more avid ones, are willing to pay more for coffee beans that suit their tastes. An increasing number of unmanned drink kiosks have also begun to appear in the Taiwanese beverage market.

Unmanned coffee beverage shops face difficulties in expanding quickly, primarily due to two major issues: one is the appropriateness of customer flow and machine placement locations which still rely on manual analysis; the second is penetrating the market of mid to high-end coffee lovers accurately.

AI resolves two major challenges for autonomous coffee roasters: suitable placement and cultivating a loyal customer base

To tackle these issues and help autonomous coffee roasters quickly break into the market, Raysharp Electronics intends to implement AI for people flow counting analysis and unfamiliar face recognition. These technologies aim to calculate the crowd size at potential roaster locations and classify consumers by gender and age for more precise market analysis. They also provide multiple choices for the roasting of raw coffee beans, offering a more customized service tailored to the needs and tastes of professional coffee aficionados with a pack of 'high-quality roasted beans'.

Since 2018, the rise of unmanned stores has been mainly due to owners wanting to reduce persistently rising rent and personnel costs. However, the initial assessment of store locations still requires hourly labor expenses for manual estimation of customer flow, leading to possible miscalculations of both on-site consumers and passerby traffic. These inaccuracies may prevent precise real-time analysis of customer flow, or even misguided estimations of operational efficacy after a trial run, thus missing the optimal timing for loss-preventing location retraction.

Raysharp Electronics introduces autonomous coffee roasters equipped with AI-based people counting analysis and facial recognition.

▲ Raysharp Electronics introduces autonomous coffee roasters equipped with AI-based people counting analysis and facial recognition.

Raysharp Electronics combines AI people counting analysis and facial recognition with the coffee trend known as 'black gold', addressing the preferences of numerous coffee connoisseurs in Taiwan who enjoy personally selecting coffee beans at bulk stores and frequenting high-quality grinding cafes or chain coffee shops. A new concept for the first autonomous coffee roaster offering choices based on the origin, variety, and roasting methods of coffee beans has emerged.

AI coffee roasters enhance customer loyalty and materials management efficiency by 20%

For the advanced development of autonomous coffee roasters, Raysharp Electronics engineers have equipped the AI NVIDIA development platform on the basis of TCNN+Facenet. Through AI, tens of thousands of images related to gender and age are used for sample training, allowing even first-time coffee roasting customers to be easily classified using unfamiliar face recognition. This gains consumer trust, enhances willingness to use, and allows for recording purchase information and future product recommendations, leading to consumer purchase behavior analysis. This information helps owners tailor future material preparation based on consumer preferences for different coffee beans, reducing raw material transportation and storage issues, and improving material management efficiency by 20%.

Moreover, by placing these autonomous coffee roasters in high-traffic areas, owners can use cameras to capture the crowd and assess whether the machine location has an adequate customer base, quickly analyzing whether to reposition the machines, and more easily targeting the best locations for middle and high-end coffee lovers.

The unmanned coffee roaster features a professional roasting mode interface, providing options based on the origin and variety of coffee beans, their roasting methods (light, medium, deep), and related temperature, wind speed, and timing settings. If improvement needs arise during the process, engineers can adjust firmware parameters and also assist in integration with the owner's ordering system.

Staff members briefly describe the operation of our coffee roaster.

▲ Staff members briefly describe the operation of the autonomous coffee roaster.

'Black Gold' penetrates deeper into coffee shops, science parks, and commercial buildings through AI

This autonomous coffee roaster targets coffee connoisseurs and can be placed in middle to high-end coffee shops to roast more customized coffee beans than those available in bulk stores. Upon completing a batch of coffee beans, it immediately provides them to professional technicians within the coffee shops for grinding and manual brewing. The remaining roasted beans can also be taken home for brewing and enjoyment. It also adds value to coffee shops by better understanding consumer preferences for coffee beans and launching more customer-attracting drink promotions and appropriate inventory management.

In addition to coffee shops, the autonomous coffee roaster can also utilize AI-based people counting analysis to precisely set up near scientific parks and commercial buildings, offering high-quality coffee beans for office brewing to internal employees with high coffee consumption needs. Furthermore, implementing a physical membership system can initiate coffee bean purchase promotions or periodic payment incentives, thus attracting new clients and cultivating existing customer loyalty and retention.

The operation interface of the smart autonomous coffee roaster.

▲ The operation interface of the smart autonomous coffee roaster

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

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【導入案例】維繫遊艇王國美譽 嘉信遊艇導入國內第一套FRP複材超音波智慧檢測
Maintaining the reputation of the “Kingdom of Yachts” - Kha Shing Enterprise introduces the first domestic FRP ultrasonic smart inspection of composite materials

The Kaohsiung-based Kha Shing Enterprise Co, Ltd was established over 40 years ago, and is Taiwan's largest customized yacht company with customers all over America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, earning Taiwan the reputation of the "Kingdom of Yachts" Current FRP hull inspection still relies on traditional methods, such as visual inspection and knocking sounds, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive Kha Shing has applied PAUT array ultrasonic inspection to hull FRP composite materials for the first time, and combined it with AI to interpret ultrasound images, develop complete intelligent solutions, and create emerging markets for inspection companies Kha Shing Enterprise Co, Ltd was formerly Kha Shing Wood Industry Co, Ltd, and was a factory specializing in wood import in Kaohsiung Linhai Industrial Park when it was first established It began to design, manufacture, and sell yachts in 1977 After the second-generation successor of the company, President Kung Chun-Hao entered the 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Schematic diagram of types of FRP hull In order to solve this problem, Kha Shing Enterprise has engaged in technical cooperated with the metal materials industry and the AI technology industry, combining the ultrasonic inspection expertise of the metal materials industry with AI technologies developed by the AI technology industry in recent years to help solve issues of Kha Shing Enterprise with defect detection The method uses PAUT on the composite material structure of yachts, conducts FRP ultrasonic evaluation to determine the thickness of the yacht hull and material properties, and evaluates the ultrasonic probe frequency applicable to the hull structure based on professional ultrasonic experience After testing, a frequency of 5MHz and a probe width of 45mm can successfully find the location and size of defects in the simulated defect test specimen The three parties jointly found defect detection solutions from array ultrasonic evaluation, AI technology model development, and actual application in yachts The image inspected is an ultrasound image The image displays different colors based on the ultrasonic feedback signal An AI model that automatically identifies defective parts is established through the YOLO algorithm If the amount of abnormal data collected is insufficient for training, the CNN-based Autoencoder algorithm is used to collect normal image data for training and construct an AI model for abnormality detection The object detection YOLO model is trained by inputting image data marked as having defects, while the abnormality detection model is trained by inputting image data without defects Simulated defective specimen corresponding to PAUT results Defect detection by and AI system can shorten the construction period by 15 months and speed up determination by 50 After the development of this AI system is completed, it will be validated on actual 54-foot yachts of Kha Shing Enterprise, and can effectively resolve issues with defects The 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【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

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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 - 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這是一張圖片。 This is a picture.
AI Assists the Red Cross for Smarter Emergency Response

More Preparation Less Loss The Taiwan Food Bank Association, a non-profit organization, collects donations daily from wholesalers, retailers, manufacturers, and even kind-hearted individuals across Taiwan They also rescue consumable materials that are about to be discarded, properly allocate and deliver to households in need, aiding local underprivileged populations When natural disasters such as earthquakes, landslides, mudslides, typhoons, floods, and droughts occur in Taiwan, the food bank's resources can be immediately deployed for disaster relief This field verification unit is the Nantou County Red Cross AssociationOne of the food bank locations, hereinafter referred to as the Nantou Red CrossIs responsible for tasks like pre-disaster supplies preparation and disaster relief material distribution, helping the government bear the responsibility of disaster relief and aid In Taiwan, various natural disasters have characteristics of different duration and spatial coverage, wide or narrow With the normalization of extreme weather, the scale and number of disasters are gradually increasing and becoming harder to predict The required amount and type of materials differ by disaster, and they must address the lifestyles of the affected areas, rescue needs, traffic conditions, geographical restrictions, and other factors for varied material allocation, facing numerous challenges Typhoon Kanu severely damaged transportation in Nantou mountain areas Nantou County Red Cross planned the mountainous route Puli gt Fazhi Elementary School gt Qin'ai Village gt Aowanda to deliver supplies Disasters happen repeatedly We need to be prepared at all times Effective disaster preparedness can mitigate the impact, including swift response to material needs in affected areas, aid distribution, and even psychological support, providing added security for life and property of those in disaster zones Lack of Timeliness in Disaster Information To improve the living conditions and address 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