In the field of health, it is known that is more effective prevent illnesses than treat them once they have manifested themselves. In a similar way, it can be apply in the context of industrial data, its continuous and proactive maintenance helps to avoid the need of...

In this post, I would like to talk about devices capable of acquiring images in the Terahertz spectral range, an emerging technology with great potential for implementation in industry, especially in the agri-food sector. Currrently, machine vision systems used in...

Elicitation (from the latin elicitus "induced" and elicere "to catch") is a term associated with psychology that refers to the fluid transfer of information from one human being to another by means of language. The knowledge elicitation applied to industry is a...

The common denominator of artificial intelligence is the need of available, good qualilty and real data to advance in the different procedures needed to create and train the models. Practical research in AI often lacks available and reliable datasets so the...

Machine vision is one of the enablers of Industry 4.0 with increased integration in production lines, especially in the quality control of products and processes. In recent years, a real revolution is taking place in this field with the integration of Artificial...

Researchers are increasingly confronted with situations of "digitalise" something that has not been digitalised before, temperatures, pressures, energy consumes,etc. for these cases we look for measure systems or a sensor in a commercial catalogue: a temperature...

The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is highly recognized as a key driver of the industrial digital revolution together with data and robotics 1 2. To increase AI deployment that is practically and economically feasible in industrial sectors, we need AI...

Computer vision is a discipline that has made it possible to control different production processes in industry and other sectors for many years. Actions as common as the shopping process in a supermarket require vision techniques such as scanning barcodes. Until a...

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Smart Devices, terms that we are constantly bombarded with in the media, making us believe that these technologies are capable of doing anything and solving any problem we face. Nothing is further from...

As we mentioned in our previous post, companies OT (Operation Technology) networks are no exception from suffering cyberattacks. So far, there have been multiple cyber-attacks suffered by industrial companies since the first registered one in 2010 that had a direct...

Identity and user data theft, ransomware, phishing, pharming or denial-of-service attacks are terms that appear more and more in the media1,2,3,4. The hyper-connected world in which we live also affects companies that, as productive entities, are increasingly exposed...

Most likely, the word photonics is not part of yourusual vocabulary, but the technologies developed in this field are increasignly used in the daily course of our lives. If we pay attention to the definition of photonics given by dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster´...

A lot of the new hype arounf the Artificial Intelligence (AI) is directly related with the potentiality for imitate or overcome the capabilities of the human brain (in terms of data volume managed and process speed) using computers. The neuroscientist Henry Markram in...

It seems unbelievable, but 5 years have passed since CARTIF inaugurated the blog with the post on Industry 4.0 in which I analysed some of the keys to the so-called “fourth industrial revolution” and how it could affect the industry in our country. It has always...

With the promise of 75 billion devices connected to the Internet around the world in 2025, the 'Internet of Things' (IoT) opens the door to a future of opportunities for companies to optimize their processes, whether in the form of manufacturing their products,...

The Augmented Reality (AR) after some fairly lukewarm beginnings is being seen as a technology with a promising future. Much of this change of image comes from the Pokémon Go phenomenon that about two years ago showed the augmented reality to the general public in a...

Industry is one of the sectors with a highest energy demand, being the fossil fuels the main energy source used in the most of the industrial processes. The utilization of this type of fuels in the manufacture process of the industries generates a waste heat that is...

Big Data as one of the so called “digital enablers” of Industry 4.0 sits at the core of promising technologies to contribute to the revolution at factories where vast amounts of data (whether they are big or small) hides enormous amount of knowledge and potential...

There are many research and innovation projects whose objective is the design and development of an electronic device, whose purpose is to satisfy main requirements of the market. In general, we look for devices with the necessary capacity to acquire information about...

Any processing plant - continuous, batch, hybrid - can improve its economic, safety and environmental indicators in two ways: improving its processing equipment or improving the control of those equipments. The improvement of processing equipment is usually a task...

A little more than a year ago, in another post of this blog, our colleague Sergio Saludes already commented what is deep learning and detailed several of its applications (such as the victory of a machine based on these networks over the world champion of Go,...

The day all of us enjoy electricity dynamic prices thanks to the smart grid, we will see how the washing machine and other home appliances come into life. And they will do it to allow us to pay less for the energy they need to do their duties. This will be one of the...

With this post, I would like to try to show a very clear example where, the intelligent use of a suitable artificial vision system can solve a major problem in a production line at a reasonable price. The body of our vehicle consists of a multitude of metallic pieces,...

Low cost alternative innovations. The barometer and how to think outside the box I finished my previous post commenting how an ILM approach --to disaggregate energy consumption in a factory- can be an unbeatable challenge, financially, for those factories with highly...

It is July 20th, 1969, 20:18:04 UTC and after 102 hours, 45 minutes and 39.9 seconds of travel "the eagle has landed" and Neil is about to descend the ladder and touch an unknown surface for the first time: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for...

Watch out, the game might not be worth the candle. In my previous post, I explained how beneficial could be for a factory to disaggregate (by direct measure and not by estimations based on nominal values) the energy consumptions of the factory between the different...

Disaggregation of consumptions?  Why? To avoid the dark side Within the world of management, the aphorism "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it" is often attributed to the twentieth century Austrian philosopher, Peter Drucker, whose writings contributed...

The use of computer environments in the mechanical engineering field has grown significantly in recent decades. Most companies in the industry are aware of the benefits of computer-aided design (CAD) and engineering (CAE) systems. The traditional tasks associated with...

In a previous post I tried to explain the Blockchain technology. In this occasion I will try to explain how customers in the electric market could benefit from it. One of the most interesting Blockchain’s applications are the smart contracts. While a traditional...

Machine vision is behind many of the great advances in the automation of the industry since it allows the control of quality of 100% of the production in processes with high cadences. A non-automated process can be inspected by the operators themselves in the...

“It is April 21, 2011. SKYNET, the Superintelligence artificial system who became self-aware 2 days earlier has launched a nuclear attack on us humans. The April 19, SKYNET system, formed by millions of computer severs all across the world, initiated a geometric...

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...

Is 3D printing one of the main engines of a new industrial revolution that will completely change the way we manufacture and consume products? From the reproduction of vital organs to the construction of shelters in space, so revolutionary is the future of 3D...

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...

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...

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...

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”...

In previous posts, predictive maintenance was mentioned as one of the main digital enablers of Industry 4.0. Maintenance, linked to the industrial revolution, however, has accompanied us in our evolution as human beings. Since prehistory, our ancestors have built...

Agriculture and husbandry are economical activities with high social value in some places around Europe; they have an important share in the economy of many European regions and the European Union devotes a significant part of its annual budget to farming and the...

The first post about Industry 4.0 indicated the need for key technologies that would make possible the 4th industrial revolution. These key tehcnologies have been called "digital enablers". Each industrial revolution has had its "enablers". The first one was made...

In the 20th Century 80’s decade there was reborn interest in neural networks, both in academia and industry. A neural network is an algorithm that mimics the neural connections present in the neocortex. The interest was motivated by the rediscovering of algorithms to...

In July 2015 we were surprised by the news that a robot kills factory worker after picking him up and crushing him against a metal plate at Volkswagen plant in Baunatal (Germany). They insisted the death was a result of human error and not any malfunction on the part...

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that is little by little is making way in our daily lives. In broad terms, it consists in embedding digital information to the reality we have before our eyes through real-time superposition of this information about the image...

Agriculture is a so old human activity that popular wisdom is full of proverbs and sayings giving recommendations about the best way to precede in farm duties. Popular wisdom along with the knowledge transmitted from parents to children has determined agriculture...

If you are hesitating about which technology would best fit your needs and liking, you should carefully analyze pros and cons and compare what you can get from both. A good starting point may be the type of driving you intend to do. If you plan to spend a lot of time...

Spanish SOHOs and SMEs have faced in recent years to a very complex macroeconomic environment. Indeed, it might be more precise saying that they are still facing this situation. The fall in the domestic consumption, along with financial constraints, has caused a...