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【2021 Application Example】 Savior of Wastewater Treatment: Combining Big Data and AI Technology Opens Another Horizon in the Environmental Industry

As water resources deplete and environmental protection needs increase, wastewater treatment plants have increasingly adopted AI technology to assist in monitoring and warning systems. Zhongxin行's integration of big data and AI technology has opened up new possibilities in the environmental industry. In the future, besides boosting the technological momentum of the wastewater treatment industry, it can also be promoted to other industries to foster technological and economic development.

Founded in year 1980 as Zhongxin Engineering (later renamed to Zhongxin行 Company Limited), it is one of the largest and most technically equipped environmental companies in the domestic operation and maintenance field. Zhongxin行's achievements in the operation and maintenance of sewer systems span across Taiwan, including science parks, industrial zones, international airports, schools, collective housing, national parks, and factories.

Introduction of AI systems in wastewater plants Precisely reduces medication addition times and lowers the risk of penalties for water quality violations

At the wastewater treatment plant in Hsinchu Science Park, Zhongxin行 introduced the 'AOMBR Carbon Source and Aeration Intelligent Enhancement Control System Development,' which accurately predicts air volume control and reduces medication times, thus lowering the risk of hefty fines. Zhongxin行 points out that with the vigorous development of advanced industries and increasingly strict effluent standards, a slight misalignment in equipment control can lead to major discrepancies in water quality.

In recent years, many wastewater treatment facilities have incorporated automatic control functions, yet onsite conditions often deviate slightly from theoretical expectations, causing situations where good treatment technologies must continuously adapt and adjust to achieve effective effluent water quality control. 'The better the quality of the effluent, the greater the pressure on the operators. This is the biggest pain point for Zhongxin行,' said a senior manager candidly.

Regular water quality testing and equipment maintenance ensure that effluent water stays below legal standards.

▲ Regular water quality testing and equipment maintenance ensure that effluent water stays below legal standards.

This means that operators need to be on top of equipment and water quality conditions daily. If there are sudden anomalies in influent water quality or equipment malfunctions, linked issues can lead to pollution. Therefore, besides performing regular maintenance and testing, it is critical to constantly monitor the dashboard to ensure system stability, consuming both manpower and mental energy.

Zhongxin行's on-site operators work 24-hour shifts, constantly monitoring effluent water quality. Combined with laboratory water testing and analysis, if the wastewater treatment values do not meet requirements, they face both administrative and contractual fines from environmental agencies and granting authorities, which also create significant psychological pressure on the employees.

Over the years, Zhongxin行 has built up a vast database of water quality information and invaluable experience passed down among employees, allowing a comprehensive understanding of the entire system's operational characteristics. Moreover, by analyzing equipment or water quality data for key signals, problems in the treatment units can be pinpointed. If AI technology could be adopted to replace manual inspections of wastewater sources and generate pre-warning signals for systematic assessment, it would significantly alleviate the pressure on staff.

Response time reduced from 8 hours to 4 hours, saving half the time

By implementing 'AOMBR Carbon Source and Aeration Intelligent Enhancement Control System Development,' Zhongxin行 utilizes accumulated wastewater data along with verbal recounts of operator experiences on-site. With the support of AI technology and environmental engineering principles, key parameters in the biological treatment unit such as carbon source dosages and aeration can be effectively controlled. Through the AI transformation of wastewater treatment, a balance is achieved among pollutant removal, microbial growth, equipment energy conservation, and operation economization, achieving rationalized control parameters.

Carbon source and aeration parameter adjustment steps range from data collection, model training to prediction verification.

▲ Carbon source and aeration parameter adjustment steps range from data collection, model training to prediction verification.

In the long run, incorporating historical data calculations, AI can operate within known boundary conditions, not only recording past water quality and equipment operational characteristics far more accurately, but also developing predictive models to find optimal solutions that offer the best results in terms of chemical use, energy saving, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and pollutant removal.

According to Zhongxin行's estimates, originally due to human parameter adjustments leading to errors, controlling response time would take about 8 hours. With the introduction of AI technology, not only can measurement errors be reduced, but also the control response time can be shortened to 4 hours, saving around half the time. This enhancement increases the turnover rate of personnel and effectively reduces the risks of penalties due to operator errors and thus markedly reducing the pressure on employees.

Dashboard digital display panel illustration.

▲Dashboard digital display panel illustration

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

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【導入案例】防患於未然 麗臺科技研發心臟衰竭AI辨識技術可及早發現病徵
Preventing Problems Before They Arise: Leadtek Research Develops AI Technology for Early Detection of Heart Failure Symptoms

With the increase in the elderly population, the incidence of various chronic diseases is rising daily Among these, heart failure is not only a silent killer it has a very long disease course with a high recurrence rate, leading to increased burden on healthcare personnel However, by using medically certified electrocardiography acoustics devices, coupled with AI predictive assessment of heart failure risk and remote care systems, diagnosis can be aided significantly, helping doctors make accurate diagnoses for subsequent patient medical care or referrals Heart failure has a lengthy course and medical expenditure is five times that of diabetes If you find yourself short of breath even with minimal movement, or if you wake up from sleep needing to sit up to feel comfortable, or if you have symptoms such as swollen lower limbs, anxiety, restlessness, fatigue, or a loss of appetite, be cautious These could be signs of heart failure According to statistics, there are about 60 million people with heart failure worldwide, with 5 million new cases every year In China, nearly 290 million people suffer from cardiovascular diseases, accounting for the second leading cause of death among urban residents around 12 million of these are heart failure patients, accounting for over 59 of cardiac-related deaths The disease course of heart failure is exceptionally long, and both its recurrence and rehospitalization rates are exceedingly high, resulting in medical costs that are twice that of hypertension and five times those of diabetes According to US research statistics, the 30-day mortality rates for patients with myocardial infarction and heart failure are respectively 166 and 111, and the rehospitalization rates within 30 days are 199 and 244 The symptoms of heart failure, because they are similar to those of other diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, have an 185 misdiagnosis rate, which poses a challenging problem for healthcare institutions Leadtek, a major graphics card manufacturer, has been investing in the medical and healthcare sector since 2000 Following two heart attacks in 2011 and 2015 experienced by Chairman Lu Kunshan, Leadtek has focused on health big data, independently developing AI technology for heart failure recognition This AI application reads patients' electrocardiograms and phonocardiograms to perform anomaly detection and model prediction of heart failure risk, enabling early detection of disease symptoms Leadtek independently developed heart failure AI recognition technology to predict medical history and risk Leadtek's independently developed heart failure AI recognition technology has the following three judgment functions 1 Prediction of heart failure history Classifies electrocardiogram and phonocardiogram data into 'with hospitalization history of heart failure' and 'no history of heart failure' 2 Risk prediction of heart failure Provides a predictive risk value of heart failure occurrence based on the electrocardiogram and phonocardiogram data 3 Prediction of heart failure recurrence risk For patients with heart failure, it reads their phonocardiogram and electrocardiogram data, assessing the risk prediction of heart failure recurrence Leadtek states that the application of heart failure AI recognition technology can assist doctors in making more efficient and accurate diagnoses, facilitating subsequent medical treatment or referrals for patients As an instance, in studies of heart failure patients discharged from Taipei Veterans General Hospital, using the EMAT Electromechanical Activation Time index and SDI Systolic Dysfunction Index calculated by the synchronized electrocardiography-acoustic device as treatment guidelines resulted in a higher survival rate compared to those treated based on traditional symptoms This research has also been published in the authoritative international cardiology journal JACC, receiving recognition in the international market System manufacturers can apply heart failure AI recognition technology for other value-added applications Leadtek states that cooperating system manufacturers can choose to build their own heart failure AI risk prediction engine, uploading their system's electrocardiogram and phonocardiogram data to Leadtek's heart failure AI risk prediction engine, which then returns risk prediction values for integration by system manufacturers cooperating manufacturers as a value-added application input Not just for clinical use, the heart failure AI risk prediction engine can also be extended for use at home or in the workplace Additionally, this system can be extended to other applications, including One, hospital outpatient screening Doctors can use the electrocardiogram and phonocardiogram recorder along with the heart failure AI risk prediction model to conduct a 10-second rapid test in outpatient and emergency departments to assess a patient's cardiac history and heart failure risk Two, discharge 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這是一張圖片。 This is a picture.
CCTV Intelligent Video Search System

Search for a specific person, find someone with a suitcase entering the factory in Gao'an area Color features of the person and the object confirmed, person in blue and black top, suitcase in black color, throughCCTV the intelligent video search system, by setting object and color retrieval conditions, it can successfully locate three video clips containing the target subject This greatly aids operational staff in finding the target items, and through this system, search speed can far surpass manual effort6fold Pain Points The CSE-Kaohsiung Plant is densely equippedCCTVto monitor every corner of the plant area, but when an incidenthappens, it's impossible within a limited time throughCCTVvideo playback to find the incident, the implications and risks behind this are self-evident Many areas that are usually unmanned can easily become security blind spots Thus, how to monitor a vast plant area more intelligently and effectively is one of the crucial aspects of building a smart plant for the semiconductor industry The AES Plant in Kaohsiung covers a vast area, with many important sites requiring monitoring of personnel movements to ensure corporate secrets and employee safety 1 Automated production lines and warehouses In semiconductor enterprises’ automated production lines and warehouses, oftenAGV(Automated Guided VehicleAGVs automated guided vehicles travel at high speeds if plant personnel inadvertently enterAGVthe moving area and cannot issue a warning to the person, then the regrettable accidents that occur will be too late to reverse 2 Material and product storage areas Materials used in semiconductor-related processes are costly if areas storing materials or products are breached, there is a risk of loss of high-value materialsproducts 3 High-security areas Trade secrets relate to the core technological competitiveness of semiconductor-related enterprises if someone breaches the high-security areas, there is a risk of corporate secrets being leaked The safety of trade secrets has always been one of the most critical issues for semiconductor enterprises 4 Loading docks At AESLButthe dock area often has loading vehicles coming and going if someone intrudes into the dock area, there is a risk of vehicle collisions and accidents Additionally, goods awaiting shipment at the dock area could be stolen or potentially damaged from collisions, thus causing significant reputation and financial losses for the company, further leading to production and shipping inconvenience When an abnormal event occurs, how to quickly search for the relevant key footage from massive data Many important locations within the AES Kaohsiung Plant need to be equippedCCTVfor safety checks, butCCTVWith thousands to tens of thousands of cameras, manually searching through footage for an event requires laborious frame-by-frame review which is time-consuming and inefficient In light of advancements in computer vision, it's beneficial to utilizeAIto replace manual playback and searching Problem Scenario Object Detection The data source for object detection comprises two parts Open-source datasetsOIDv4and AES Kaohsiung PlantCCTVImage files For these files, search for usable data, specificallyOIDv4image files For these files, extract the defined nine major categories of objects for training data among them, two object categories, knives and gasoline barrels, were not found inOIDv4found usable data for knives and gasoline barrels, while the remaining seven categories of objects are available fromOIDv4useful training data found for the remaining seven categories of objects, all marked Regarding the Kaohsiung PlantCCTVimage files, select some frames Frame of the footage, and manually annotate the objects to be_detected for training and testing data Nine Major Objects Color Recognition The data source for color recognition is divided into two partsInternet image screenshots, and Kaohsiung PlantCCTVimage files Currently, no publicly available open-source datasets specifically for color recognition applications have been found, so images are collected from the web Search the web for images of the defined nine major object categories, save the images after separating the objects from the background, keeping only the object sections, and mark the images according to color Additionally, for the Kaohsiung PlantCCTVimage files, use the already-markedbounding boxextractCCTVimage files from variousFramesections of objects identified by color, and finally, visually identifiable images are marked according to color Each object category has its specific color definition, depending on the usual colors seen in these objects in real life Dynamic Ignore during Training FromOIDv4during the training of the object detection pilot model, since each image in this dataset is only marked for a single category, but the image may contain other desired detection categories unmarked For such cases, dynamic ignore techniques will be employed during training to avoid 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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

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