AIoT — Artificial Intelligence of Things

Renewable energy sources make the energy supply volatile, so manufacturing companies need to rethink how they plan their energy requirements. In manufacturing, almost every process stage involves some flexibility in terms of the required power output and the timing of execution. The Balancing Energy Network harnesses this flexibility. As the central artificial intelligence of Bosch’s networked energy management system, it processes manufacturing data on production and flexibility, analyzes it, and uses it to create energy-optimized schedules for facilities. This allows companies to make the best possible use of the electricity they generate themselves, reduce the amount of electricity they purchase from the grid, and thereby cut emissions and costs.

A major concern in the field of building safety is fire protection. The artificial intelligence of things can detect fires at a very early stage, for example using the AVIOTEC camera from Bosch. This is particularly advantageous in rooms with high ceilings, as the AI-based fire detection sounds the alarm faster than most fire detectors, which are often mounted very high up. AVIOTEC uses infrared lighting and artificial intelligence to detect fire and smoke, even in total darkness. The camera’s smart algorithms learn by regularly exchanging data with the cloud and can distinguish between real fires and harmless faults, thus avoiding false alarms.

The semiconductor plant in Dresden is Bosch’s first AIoT factory. All its systems, sensors, and products generate data, which is collected in a central repository. The data quantities are enormous: every second, the plant generates the equivalent of 500 pages of text. That would amount to more than 42 million sheets of paper a day — big data indeed. This is where artificial intelligence comes in, as self-optimizing algorithms learn to make predictions based on the data. In this way, operations can be analyzed in real time without disrupting sensitive manufacturing processes.