Last November I attend third Big Data Value Association (BDVA) Summit in Valencia. The BDVA is a fully self-financed non-profit organization under Belgium law that represents the ‘private’ side in Big Data Value Public Private Partnership (Big Data Value PPP), while the European Commission represents the ‘public’ side. The Big Data Value PPP is operational since January 2015, and its main objective is to boost European Big Data Value research, development and innovation. In particular BDVA aims at:
strengthening competitiveness and ensuring industrial leadership of providers and end users of Big Data Value technology-based systems and services;
promoting the widest and best uptake of Big Data Value technologies and services for professional and private use;
establishing the excellence of the science base of creation of value from Big Data.
BDVA has around 150 members from 27 different countriesworking in 9 Task Forces: Programme, Impact, Community, Communication, Policy & Society, Technical, Application, Business, Skills and Education.
In 2016 the first PPP calls have been launched inside H2020 programme and in January 2017 the approved project will celebrate the kick-off meetings. CARTIF is a partner in one of this project titled Transforming Transport. As part of CARTIF’s tasks, we will in charge of Big Data approach inside one of the pilots, including Data Analytics.
Data Analytics and Computational Intelligence is not new to CARTIF. During last years, projects like OPTIRAIL, Development of a Smart Framework based on Knowledge to support Infrastructure Maintenance decisions in Railway networks, PREFEX Advanced techniques for the prediction of the excavation front or GEOMAF, New Maintenance Operations Management Tool for Railway superstructure and infrastructure, have tried to make valuable for the companies of the transport sector the information, knowledge, and experience the have gathered along the way, which are not systematically put into good use for multiple reasons.
At a more technical level the process is developed starting from the data (monitoring, historic information, etc.) and knowledge (experience) from an expert on the field. A proper use, based on Computational Intelligence methods and similar techniques, make possible to extract, model, and transfer knowledge that will make the involved companies able to give a higher added value to their activity and services.
Even so the use of data analytics techniques in real industrial environment is lower than expected. It is necessary to continue disseminating the benefits that techniques of this type can bring both in the social field, and in the industrial and services environment. Thanks to the BDVA and to events such as the one held in Valencia, this much-needed dissemination is increasingly being heard by a greater number of companies.
From the reproduction of vital organs to the construction of shelters in space, so revolutionary is the future of 3D printing. With this perspective, it is not surprising that many people ensure that this way of materializing objects will change our lives to unsuspected levels. We can say that a new industrial and technological revolution is taking place in the same way that when Internet appeared in our lives, a network of which many of us doubted in its beginnings and that has changed our world.
Currently, 3D printing, also called additive manufacturing, is fully deployed in the aerospace industry, in the engineering, architecture, defense, automotive and medicine. Its main applications are the reproduction of 3D scans and the printing of objects designed with three-dimensional modeling programs (CAD), which allow reducing the time of development of new products or even launch them to the market.
Its implications are endless. It is not already necessary to wait months to have a huge quantity of the first model of an object to launch a product, due to three-dimensional model can be sent hundreds or thousands of kilometers away to become an object in any place. In this way, in the future, a lot of industrial production will be on demand and will travel online, and will completely change the idea of consuming products, because every person has the ability to customize their own products with a great advantage: the exclusivity of each article.
Although the majority of current 3D printings are not able to produce very tough, economical and even useful pieces enough to replace traditional production ways, they have a very relevant application nowadays; educate in the use of technology.
In relation to the future, from the social point of view, I think that the true revolution of printing will not be a specific application or use, but the speed with which this technology, which today it looks like magic, will turn into something essential for our lives. From the technical point of view, at the same time that technologies will be capable to depositing materials, we will see a growing emergence of functional parts that fully exploit the capabilities of additive manufacturing.
Something very revolutionary will be the 3D printing applied to medicine, reconstructive, maxillofacial, or orthodontic traumatology, where is already being investigated with biompatible materials that will give the possibility of making organs accepted by humans and surgeons will have in a few days of objects to solve the problems of each person in a specialized way.
In short: 3D printing has come to say and change the way we consume and produce forever.
Internet of Things(IoT) are becoming common. These are the objects that connect to Internet by themselves to carry out their duties with no human intervention. One possible application that can help us to save money and to reduce greenhouse gasses emissions is the remote control of domestic devices featuring thermostats. These devices are the conditioning air, electric heaters, fridges, heat pumps and heating. While heat pumps are not common in many European countries, gas heating is widespread. Although the latter is not electricity driven, the same ideas can be applied because it relies on a thermostat. The important feature shared by all those devices is that they have thermal inertia, which means there is no significant effect if they are switched off for a reasonable period.
The first step is to connect to Internet the devices. There is technology available in the market to do this, like the Siemens’ Synco Living series or the devices manufactured by Greenwave Systems. This technology enables users to remotely access the aforementioned devices.
The next step is to allow the electricity company to control the thermostats, so they will be able to change the temperature set-point when some conditions are hold. For instance, in the case of the air conditioning, it means they will be able to increase the set-point up to certain threshold or for a certain amount of minutes every hour. In return for allowing changing set-points, the customer will have discount in his electricity bill.
Dryer connected to a smart switch
We have to consider companies do not participate in this scheme for the love of humankind, but because of the benefits they gain. What the company is really doing is to buy the customer’s flexibility. The flexibility is the energy the customer is willing to save if there is a return. When the company aggregates the flexibility of many clients, they find they do not need to produce or to buy a huge amount of energy which leads to big economic savings, in particular under unforeseen circumstances like some weather events.
But these programs that are profitable both for the companies and the customers have an even more interesting side; they foster the integration of renewable energies in the grid. The problem with renewable energy is that it cannot be scheduled, as it occurs with conventional sources. As a result, we have energy when there is no demand or the demand can concentrate when the wind does not blow. Demand response programs, this is the name for the described scheme, enables companies to use the aggregated customer’s flexibility to reduce energy demand when renewable sources are weak. In this way there is no need to build CO2 emitting reserve power stations, which are very expensive because they are not continuously running.
Demand response programs can be seen as a case of Internet of Things (IoT) and they are not common in Europe, at least among domestic customers, as it occurs in the USA. These programs allow citizens to be directly engaged in the promotion of renewable energies and in the reduction of greenhouse gasses production. They are a kind of everyday life perturbation, and some people could perceive it as an intolerable intromission. However, we have to consider almost all of us have a product called flexibility we can sell to the electricity companies and, at the same time, it is a personal involvement in climate change mitigation.
It is not easy to find a definition for Smart Grid that summarizes every objective, topic and technology included under this concept. Searching and surfing the web, one can find long and detailed descriptions including many of the Smart Grids related topics, or other very brief and simple that are only focused in the points that the author of the definition is interested in. It is out of the scope of this post to deeply analyze those definitions, so assuming the risk of being too simple in our description; we can say that a Smart Grid should include at least these four topics:
– Distributed generation: improving grid management when a great number of small and medium power sources are present in the grid and when renewable sources have an increasing weight in the generation system. – Demand response: allowing final users, specially domestic users, to make decisions about changing their consumption habits thanks to the information that they could receive about energy price or because they can use local generation or storing systems to support their own demand. – ICT: for data acquisition and management in the different grid levels, from users to generation systems and including transformation centres. – Reliability: using data and information acquired from the grid to improve management strategies and also maintenance politics of every element in the grid, including predictive maintenance what guarantee an increase in the reliability of the whole grid.
If the Smart Grid becomes true in every level of the electric system, there will be a great number of benefits for the different actors in the grid, for example:
– To increase the capacity of using renewable power sources at user and global level – To reduce of the electricity bill for the users as they have enough information to shift their demand to the hours of the day when the electricity cost is cheaper. – To increase the capacity of the distribution system operator for generation and demand balancing – To ease the maintenance of the equipment installed in the grid extending their life and avoiding unexpected faults, with the logic economic and management benefits for the distribution system operator
To achieve these goals it is needed to develop or deploy the suitable technology for every challenge, knowing that many of these technologies are already available. These technologies must be focused mainly on three topics:
– Power sources: including renewable power sources and batteries of different scale and power rates. These will allow a better use of the available energy in every site and for every user. – Equipment and devices for grid operation: including smart meters, remote operated devices and drives, smart appliances… To help accessing the grid data and information and also for a quick and remote operation of the devices that will deploy the management decisions in the grid. – Decision support systems, to help in the generation and demand balancing taking into account the different objectives that must be satisfied in the grid.
But it would be a big mistake to think that a grid will become smart when all these technologies are available or that these technologies will introduce the intelligence in the grid automatically. As an example we can notice that in Spain , the company Iberdrola has installed a smart meter to a 76% of its clients but it is difficult to find someone that has changed his electricity consumption habits thanks to the information that they can obtain from that devices. Even though when this could imply to reduce the cost of their monthly bill.
Without any doubt, we will deploy really smart grids only when everyone involved in the generation, demand, design, tools deployment or grid management could be part of a smart network of people working together for the same goal.
This imply not only to be smart for developing the best tools and technologies needed in every application, but also to be smart in selecting the final goals that we want to obtain. In this sense we can call “smart grid” that network in which everyone share the same sustainability objectives, environment care and optimal exploitation of available renewable power resources. Of course that economic profit is also needed to mobilize the required investment and involve many of the actors, but if this is the only goal in the short-term probably will not able to build a really smart grid. In our opinion, a smart grid will be the one in which:
– the users understand that participating in demand response strategies not only reduce their electricity bill, but also will contribute to build a system where renewable resources could be better exploited. In this way they could offer their flexibility in energy demand even though when their economic benefit could not be high, but they will be contributing to the environmental care. – the distribution system operator assume that their investment in the grid besides the economic profit should also search for a social and environmental benefit even though when the economic one could be limited. – the government facilitate the use of those technologies that increase the energy independence of the domestic users and that allow to take advantage of all the available renewable resources.
To sum up, a smart grid will be the one in which the common benefit of the society in the mid and long term is the main goal of every decision, either in the strategic ones made by humans or in the automatic ones made by the smart devices during the grid management. Because the intelligence is not only in the developed knowledge but mainly in the way we use it.
I had planned to continue talking about Green Manufacturing initiatives, but I have decided to write a new post with a different but complementary approach to sustainable manufacturing.
Before the Flood is a 2016 documentary film about climate change firstly screened on 30th October 2016 on the National Geographic Channel. Directed by Fisher Stevens and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The film was produced by a collaboration between Stevens, Leonardo DiCaprio, James Packer, Brett Ratner, Trevor Davidoski, and Jennifer Davisson Killoran. Martin Scorsese is an executive producer.
The film shows DiCaprio visiting various regions of the globe during 3 years exploring the impact of man-made global warming. Along with Leonardo DiCaprio, the documentary includes interviews with Barack Obama, Pope Francis, Sunita Narain, Elon Musk, and Johan Rockström. I strongly encourage everybody to watch this film. It is widely available and free of charge on various platforms like the National Geographic Channel in Youtube
I have been fortunate to work on the demonstrative REEMAIN project during the last three years. In this project, among other multiple activities, three demo factories (biscuits, iron foundry and denim fabrics) are voluntarily –and supported by European funds- taking several initiatives in order to increase their efficiency in terms of energy and material resources consumption.
Even in subsidised scenarios like REEMAIN, it is not easy to achieve the required modifications in the manufacturing processes and installations in order to merely reduce the corresponding environmental impact, especially if the modifications affect the expected profits. Therefore, although some proposed measures should not affect the factory profitability, they are still perceived by the Managers as unnecessary risk or uncertainty elements.
Why should any company turn its production and operative systems upside down to fight against climate change? What happens with those companies whose products or production processes are inherently polluting?
Simply encouraging companies to include among their main objectives the fight against climate change is a good idea, or at least is better than doing nothing, but it is clearly not enough. The process will not be fast enough. The change must be externally boosted, and it is our responsibility as citizens-voters-consumers to assure it. One possible booster is the politician power through the adoption of new more restrictive legislation like the banning of coal use in the European cities. The other booster might be the consumers awareness and consequent rejection of those products and services associated with a high environmental impact. For example, the campaigns against the use of palm oil.
This film of DiCaprio is naturally more oriented towards the American public. Hence, it takes some time to explain the USA politician system and the economic relationships established between politicians and big hydrocarbons companies. Because of it, currently in the 2016 America Congress and Senate there is an important percentage of representatives that directly deny the climate change. In Europe, our politic representatives fortunately, no longer have doubts about the climate change. However, it seems like if the possible negative effects over the economy were slowing the development of new regulations that restrict or directly ban the most polluting products and processes. A practical example of this issue is the EC authorities management of the “Dieselgate” scandal.
The movie ends –this is not a spoiler, since the important idea of this film is spread through the whole movie- with a clear message: It is up to all of us to stop the climate change. It can be achieved using two tools: our consumer habits and our vote.
Consume differently. Reflecting on what we buy, what we eat and how we get our power, might make a first step.
Vote for leaders who will fight climate change, will make the second step. Leaders that will end fossil fuel subsidies and exploitation, invest in renewables and support a price on carbon.
I absolutely agree with both proposals. However, I would add that in addition to consumers and voters we are also citizens, hence, we must try to communicate and convince the rest of the citizens about the importance of stopping the climate change. This post is my first grain of sand.
Recently, the Augmented Reality is becoming more and more common due to use of hand-held devices on our daily life such as smart phones, tablets and lately smart glasses. In this way, different applications, in many cases for leisure, like “Pokemon GO” or “Snapchat” image editor tool, have become popular this technology. But it is also includes for professional use on multitude of application areas.
However, AR is neither a new technology nor it is subject to the use of smart phones orsmart glasses. Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR) augments real world objects and scenes without the use of special displays such as monitors or hand-held devices. The key difference in SAR is it makes use of fixed digital projectors to display graphical information onto physical object surface. The display is separated from the user of the system.
Because the displays are not associated with each user, SAR scales naturally up to groups of users, thus allowing for collocated collaboration between users. Furthermore, users avoid suffering eye strain due to use of smart glasses or be loaded with extra hand-held devices. For these reasons, aside from games and leisure applications, SAR has many potential applications in Industry.
In the automotive industry is used frequently during design stage projecting onto the car surface different options to choose the finish, or showing the employee how to perform the tasks of a specific reparation. Although, one of most implementations in this field is assistance in manual assembly tasks.
One or more optical devices (projectors) fixed provide immediate guidance for tasks step by step, projecting indications (text, images, animations) onto the work surface and in some cases directly on the parts on which a user is working. Spatial Augmented Reality can offer the following benefits:
• Reduces or eliminates the need for computer monitors and screens, as the instructions appear directly in the task space. • Reduces users’ cognitive load when following work instructions, specially for training new workers. • Reduces the need to interrupt workflows to consult information elsewhere because there is no is no need for “attention switching” between work instructions and the task at hand.
In addition of previously commented: • Workers avoid suffering eye strain due to use of smart glasses or be loaded with extra hand-held devices. • One SAR system allows groups of users and collaboration between them.
This technology combined with some validation system, such as tool localization system or hand tracker trough computer vision, to ensure and confirm correct execution of the tasks, provides feedback for process improvement, traceability and reduces errors. CARTIF is involved in some projects that apply the benefits of Spatial Augmented Reality and reduce as much as possible its most delicate features, such as ambient brightness, adaptation of projection to colour and shape of the pieces, or possible occlusions produced by workers.