ITRI TODAY Spring issue 2023

Innovations in AI, Robotics, and ICT

ITRI’s CES 2023 technologies in AI, robotics, and ICT include AI Aquarium, a CES 2023 Innovation Awards honoree, the world’s first smart aquarium that helps identify marine life in real time; Cubot ONE: Indoor/Outdoor AMR, an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) integrating AI, IoT and 5G technologies, that can operate indoors and outdoors, take elevators and travel on rugged ground; and RobotSmith, an AI and robotic system for metal workpiece grinding and polishing.

AI Aquarium Offers an Interactive Aquarium Experience

AI Aquarium, a CES 2023 Innovation Awards honoree, is the world’s first interactive smart aquarium that helps observers identify marine life in real time. With intuitive virtual-real fusion, the system can recognize aquatic species with up to 98% accuracy and show corresponding information on a transparent display according to an observer’s line of sight. AI Aquarium also performs gesture recognition with up to 98% accuracy. The interactive augmented-reality technology also can be used for exhibitions, information and sightseeing guidance, smart edutainment, retail display and surgical simulation. AI Aquarium has been installed in the National Museum of Marine Science & Technology in Taiwan, serving tens of thousands of visitors and receiving positive feedback.

AI Aquarium incorporates dynamic object recognition technology with an intuitive user interface to provide an intelligent self-guided experience. Observers can learn about marine life in real time and access detailed information via gesture control. AI Aquarium recognizes more than 10 gestures, creating an entertaining and interactive human-machine interface.

Regardless of an observer’s height, AI Aquarium detects gaze direction and hand gestures, allowing visitors of all sizes to enjoy unique interactions with aquatic species. AI Aquarium also avoids interference from irrelevant movements or hands of other observers, and it excludes complicated environmental factors that may affect recognition accuracy, such as water clarity, ambient light, underwater light, and fish movements. Moreover, AI Aquarium can play video and audio to enhance the contextual atmosphere for an immersive exhibition experience. With contactless interactive technologies, AI Aquarium avoids hygiene issues from using touchscreens and creates more fun through free movement.

The Cubot ONE Autonomous Mobile Robot Delivers Food and More

Cubot ONE: Indoor/Outdoor AMR is an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) that can operate both indoors and outdoors, rain or shine. It is the first AMR that combines 5G, AIoT (artificial intelligence of things), and V2X (vehicle-to-everything) to provide door-to-door delivery services. With smart vehicle perception capability, it avoids pedestrians and obstacles. It can travel on uneven surfaces such as accessibility ramps, take elevators to move between floors, and navigate signalized intersections installed with cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) roadside units. Cubot ONE also reduces the ecological impact of fuel-powered vehicles used for logistics delivery since its power source is a rechargeable lithium battery and it can travel on public roads.

Cubot ONE has been deployed in several automated-delivery applications. For example, in Taiwan, 7-Eleven uses Cubot ONE for its automated delivery service, foodomo, to deliver food in a science park. A national library in Taiwan uses Cubot ONE as an autonomous book return cart.

Cubot ONE also includes a management platform that can coordinate multiple AMR operations in the same area. The system also provides open APIs that can be easily integrated with any management platform for customized applications and logistics fleet management. The chassis can be refitted for various payloads to fulfill diverse applications, creating more possibilities for the logistics industry.

Cubot ONE can move between floors by communicating with the elevator controller through a 5G network. This makes it an ideal vehicle to provide door-to-door food delivery in office buildings or apartments.

Cubot ONE integrates autonomous driving technology for open environments, including LiDAR perception, high-precision mapping and positioning, and flexible planning technology. These enable Cubot ONE to arrive at the destination safe and sound, without causing collisions or accidents.

Robotsmith Automates Metal Workpiece Grinding and Polishing

RobotSmith is an AI and robotic system for metal workpiece grinding and polishing. ITRI developed RobotSmith to address the manufacturing industry’s challenges and trends of digital transformation, supply chain restructuring and labor shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. RobotSmith’s quality grinding and polishing technology has been applied to manufacturing plumbing fixtures, high-end knives, and medical devices such as artificial joints.

RobotSmith digitalizes the grinding and polishing techniques of experienced workers and removes the limitations of human labor and manual precision. It can be easily deployed in traditional industries to implement digital transformation while preserving craftsmanship skills required for production lines. RobotSmith employs AI software to mimic human skills and overcome process bottlenecks.

RobotSmith incorporates sensing, robotics, industry best practices and ITRI’s AI software EzSim to offer a total solution for surface finishing. The EzSim software performs simulation and trajectory planning, and it optimizes path parameters to achieve high precision and efficiency to perform surface treatment as delicately as a human expert. Sensors and trained AI models provide real-time defect detection and ensure process quality.

More technologies for CES exhibition:

• The Athena Orchestrator—O-RAN SMO & RIC is the world’s first private network management platform based on the O-RAN ALLIANCE specifications. The platform can provide real-time energy-saving dynamic resource allocation for various private network scenarios and can improve the energy efficiency of mobile networks to meet carbon-emission goals.

• The SiC Electric Powertrain Controller for electric vehicles features a compact thin-film capacitor busbar kit. This design reduces the module volume to 5 L and increases driving range and vehicle efficiency. With low power loss, the 800 V SiC driver can provide up to 214 kW of power and reach an efficiency over 98%. The power density can be maintained at > 40 kW/L, exceeding the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2025 target of 33 kW/L for a 100-kW traction drive system.