Omron releases new AI controller

The Sysmac AI Controller handles several key steps in the data-driven decision process for predictive maintenance, thereby freeing up industrial professionals from tedious calculations, analyses and infrastructure upgrades.

This controller can help manufacturers reduce the risk of bad parts or equipment damage by detecting issues early on and prompting immediate action to resolve them.

The AI functionality – also known as ‘machine learning’ – is able to identify abnormal machine behavior without being explicitly programmed to do so. Since there could be many different factors and measurements that indicate an issue when observed together, automating the feature extraction process saves a significant amount of time and resources. Leveraging the machine learning results during production is key to ensuring end user cost savings.

The process of collecting raw data from machines is completely automated by the new AI controller which operates on the ‘edge’ within the machine, ensuring higher data fidelity and consistency. In addition, the controller automatically creates data models from correlation analysis and monitor machine status based on that model. Without this automation, machine designers and operators would otherwise need to develop their own analytics and optimization capabilities in order to avoid cloud solution costs.

Rather than being a cloud, Omron’s approach to artificial intelligence-based control involves hardware, offline software and in-person service. No internet connectivity or IT infrastructure/service is required. The hardware is based on the Sysmac NY5 IPC and the NX7 CPU and includes Omron’s AI application components, a library of AI predictive maintenance function blocks. Several additional AI specific utilities are also included.

Because the data collection and analysis is performed within the same hardware as the controls program, the solution provides the utmost data processing speed, accuracy and security. For the service component, Omron experts will assist in startup and provide periodic support.