In a previous blog, we talked about how IoT can help in taking control. There is another step further: to optimize your processes with AIOT.

Benefits

• Better use of existing resources
• Take the right decisions at the right time
• Optimal circumstances

Better use of existing resources

Control means you have a clear overview how assets are being used. Such as:

• How long does each step in a process take?
• What are the whereabouts of my assets (trucks, cranes, forklifts, containers…)?
• What is the state of maintenance?

The next step is of course, to optimize your business.

First of all, many blogs write about total-new situations. In fact, most AIOT is needed in companies which are already established. With their inventory, processes, customers and all the responsibilities which come with them. Large investments have been made to reach the business today. And so, their processes may not be optimal, at least they work. So how to benefit from AIOT, without throwing away all these investments? And: how to be sure processes are at least working as they do know? Smart sensors help to bring the whole process at today’s level, without throwing away resources which are working fine. Besides, companies can choose to implement AIOT piecemeal.

This is especially the case when it’s about highly essential functions such as infrastructure, sluices and installations. Here, the asset is not just an asset, but a part of a total infrastructure. Downtime of such an asset has large implications for society as a whole.

Many processes are still monitored piecemeal. A further optimization is to connect systems with each other. Get 1 overview in 1 dashboard. Learn how your processes are doing, and where are the optimizations are required.

Take the right decisions at the right time

To measure is to know, to know is to be able to improve.

One most mentioned benefits of AIOT is preventive maintenance. Preventive maintenance means that something is repaired or replace, before it is breaks. Or at least, to maintain while the damage is still small. In normal situations there would be downtime, now repairs can be made scheduled. And if downtime is needed for repairs, then it can be scheduled at times the least inconvenient.

It’s already been said: to be able to schedule repairs. Take the right decisions at the right time. Besides, in the old situation, a foreman has to do his round, where he gives each machine the same attention. With AIOT, the quality of the assets can be guarded with sensors. So, at his round, a foreman can give most attention to the machines which mostly need it.

The same applies to a sector as biomedical: ‘to prevent is better then to cure’. So, help your clients and/or yourself to stay healthy. An example is fall detection. And does the elderly take his medicine?

Help your patients with therapy, to make use of knowledge from all previous patients: is therapy going on track? Also: give the patients who need it the right amount of attention. Instead of seeing all your patients with a standard scheduled time-frame, and as a consequence, give none of them enough time really.  If therapy is lagging, you probably want to give those patient attentions. Is therapy going faster then expected: what are the reasons? How can this knowledge be used to improve therapy in the future? Besides, if people can do therapy and appointments at home, they don’t have to spend their precious time; where the actual time needed for treatment is shorter then the time spent on travelling and waiting.

Optimal circumstances

Sensors can guard that product are made or kept in optimal circumstances. E.g., if cutting parts of a machine are still sharp enough, and in their right precision. Or guard the temperature of cooling or keep an eye on the indoor air quality. This may also make guarantees possible, and thus creating added value to your products or service.

The post What do you want to achieve with AIOT?: To Optimize appeared first on ASN Home.

In 2020, KPN opened a 5G Fieldlab on the Brainport Industries Campus (BIC) in Eindhoven. This fieldlab focusses on smart industry, where different use cases show the possibilities of 5G for manufacturing. With its BIC partners, KPN has set up Smart Industry project with the new generation of mobile network technology. The aim of a Fieldlab is to experiment with the benefits of 5G in a representative environment. How can this new network technology be used in combination with developments such as artificial intelligence for numerous smart applications.  To explore how 5G can optimize business processes and improve customer experience.

3.5 GHz

This includes the 3.5GHz frequency, which is ideal for testing high-bandwidth use cases. At this moment. In 2022, frequencies in the 3.5 GHz band will be distributed during the new 5G auction. From 2022-2023, 3.5 GHz can be used outdoors.

The Netherlands is a leader in Europe when it comes to the quality and speed of mobile networks. A position that contributes to the economic success of the Netherlands. To maintain this position, it is essential that the necessary 3.5GHz frequency can be used in these test environments. The availability of this frequency is crucial for the successful testing of 5G applications and the introduction of 5G in the Netherlands. KPN is actively trying to contribute to a suitable solution for this problem.

Ultrawideband (UWB)

The 5G indoors is combined with Ultrawideband. UWB is very useful to track objects on the factory  floor and in warehouses in real time. Objects, assets and people can be determined with up to thirty centimeters accuracy, and often even more accurately.

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3.5 GHz frequency auction

Starting in 2022, KPN will auction G5 frequencies. Meanwhile, together with customers and technology partners, telecom and ICT service provider KPN has launched 5G field labs to discover the value of 5G applications. Thanks in part to 5G technology, these types of applications will become a reality.

During the new 5G auction, frequencies in the 3.5 GHz band will be distributed. These will enable connections at much higher speeds. At the auction in the first quarter of 2022, at least three parties must obtain licenses for the frequencies. No single party may acquire more than 40 percent of the available frequencies, says the proposal for the course of the auction.

A total of 300 megahertz of bandwidth is to be distributed. This consists of three blocks of 60 megahertz and twelve blocks of 10 megahertz. The auction will be held in three phases. Prior to and during the auction the Ministry of Economic Affairs will not provide information about the total number of participants. At the end, the winning parties will be announced and the State Secretary will make the entire bidding process public.

Tomorrow’s digital highway

Thanks to the capacity and reliability of our network, new applications such as innovations in security, healthcare, mobility, logistics and the manufacturing industry become possible.  Unlike 4G, 5G is expected to become an ecosystem from which many business sectors, industries and areas can benefit. Innovations from which the whole of society benefits. In addition to higher speed, 5G focuses explicitly on flexibility in the network to support very short response times and higher reliability. This will enable a wide range of new applications for customers and industries.

5G is expected to provide a huge boost in business for augmented and virtual reality, robotics, drones, intelligent assets, wearables, AI-based video analytics and Internet of Things (IoT), among others.

In addition to 5G, Internet of Things also requires edge computing. This involves placing a small cloud with computing power, storage and network capacity at the edge of the network, as it were, close to applications, devices and users. Because data no longer has to travel all the way up and down to the cloud or a data center, time-critical applications such as self-driving cars and augmented reality become possible.

5G: enabler for Industry 4.0

5G is also a key enabler for Industry 4.0. This involves using Internet of Things, cloud computing and data integration, among other things, to make the production process fully computer-controlled and remote. The human thought process is thereby partially or completely taken over. Due to its high speed and reliability and short latency, 5G is essential within Industry 4.0 for, for example, controlling production lines, facilitating self-driving vehicles and connecting large numbers of IoT devices.

Field Labs

The national rollout of 5G has only just started, but KPN has been testing 5G for useful applications in its Field Labs for some time. 

The 5G field lab for the manufacturing industry shows everyone which 5G indoor use cases are possible in a factory environment. Besides speed, 5G also enables larger reliability and very low network latency. A large number of wireless sensors also plays an important role in the further rollout of the IoT. Thus, the 5G Field Labs shows that 5G can be used for very different applications simultaneously.

The post The roll-out to 5G: enabler for Industry 4.0 appeared first on ASN Home.

• Look for signs of allergies from anyone in the building such as worsening hay fever sneezing or post nasal drip
• Fog on indoor windows
• Mold growth; moldy or dusty smell
• Damp spots, e.g., on ceilings or walls
• Peeling paint
• Sweating on the basement floor or walls
• Condensation on water pipes
• Any collection of water or mildew
• Decaying wood
• Wet spots or water stains on ceilings

For most indications that the humidity is too high, the ‘symptoms’ manifest themselves over a long time, e.g., damp spots and peeling paint. For your assets, the saying goes ‘prevention is better than to cure’. Walls and windows have to be painted again, rotten wood has to be replaced, etc.

And even more important, this means that people inside the building have long suffered from humidity levels that are too high. For many people, it has deteriorated their feeling of well-being and worsened their productivity. It may also have triggered and worsened asthmatic and allergenic symptoms.

How to prevent indoor air gets too moist?

Check your indoor air quality and take care of the humidity. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) advises to keep humidity levels between 30–50%. Modern sensors like the AirGuard measure humidity, heat and TVOC and CO2 as well and give you a warning when humidity conditions are not optimal. So, you can open or close a window for instance.

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Importance of humidity

Many people find a humidity of 30-60 percent comfortable. During the hot summer months, many people feel that a humidity level of 55% is comfortable. Above this level, the air is considered humid. Because sweat doesn’t evaporate enough to cool you off, you feel hot and sticky when the air is humid. Above the level 65% is felt as oppressive.

But also: humid air is harder to breath. That can be a problem if you have asthma. Many people with asthma feel that a humidity level above 65% may worsen their symptoms of asthma. When you have asthma, it is more difficult to pull enough air into the lungs, because your airways become narrow. This may cause feeling of shortage of breath or wheezing and coughing.

3 Ways Humidity worsens Asthma

Allergens, chemicals and strong scents are common triggers for people who suffer from asthma. But high humidity can be also just as troublesome.

People with asthma have inflamed airways that are sensitive to things that may not bother other people. That’s why humidity, and all that comes with it, can be a problem for people with asthma. Here are some reasons why.

• Humid air feels harder to breathe in
• Humidity may worsen air quality
• Humidity can mean very high temperatures

Humid air feels harder to breathe in

Hot, humid air may feel heavier and denser and thus harder to breathe in. Besides, humidity may activate sensory nerve fibers in the airways. These C-fibers may narrow the airways and stimulate coughing, which makes it difficult to breathe. Besides, when heat and humidity make the air harder to breathe, the body temperature can go up. This causes sweat, which can lead to dehydration. This can lead to make you breathe faster. These factors may trigger asthma symptoms.

On the other hand, when the air is very dry -a relative humidity is less than 15%- it may also lead to coughing when you’re asthmatic. When the air is very dry, the mucous membranes of the respiratory system may dry out. These membranes line your lungs and respiratory system. This leads to an increased risk for infections from viruses: due to the decreasing natural defense from influenza or the common cold virus. Dry mucous membranes may aggravate allergy symptoms and worsen asthma symptoms (most asthmatics have also allergies).

Humidity may worsen air quality

Humidity can also trigger asthma because moist increase levels of mold, dust mites, ground-level ozone. Those are known as asthma triggers.

When the humidity level is higher than 50 percent, mold might begin to grow. Mold is often found at damp places. If you are sensitive for mold, it may trigger your asthma.

Dust mites are also a problem inside when humidity is high. Dust mites live in furniture, carpets, etc.  If the humidity in your home is higher than 50 percent, dust mites thrive and multiply themselves. Their dead bodies and waste may trigger asthma.

Heat and Humidity may also lead to stagnant air from pollutants (like ozone), allergens (dust, mold, dust mites, pollen) and smoke. This may also trigger asthma symptoms.

Asthma worsens feelings of well-being and productivity

For people suffering from asthma, poor humidity levels don’t affect only the feeling of well-being. It has effects on your productivity. An international study in the Journal of Asthma and Allergy shows: “The average percentage of work hours missed in a single week due to asthma symptoms was 9.3%, ranging from 3.5% (UK) to 17.4% (Brazil). Nearly three-quarters of patients reported an impact on their productivity at work caused by asthma. Overall work productivity loss (both time off and productivity whilst at work) due to asthma was 36%, ranging from 21% (UK) to 59% (Brazil). When asked how asthma made participants feel at work, many respondents highlighted how their respiratory symptoms affect them. Tiredness, weakness and mental strain were also identified as particular challenges, with respondents describing concerns about the perception of colleagues and feelings of inferiority”

Control your humidity level

Humidity levels can worsen asthma in 3 ways. It doesn’t only affect the feeling of well-being, but also productivity. Thus, it is very important for offices, schools, institutions etc. to assure that humidity levels are being kept on levels where children, employees, visitors feel most comfortable. Smart sensor solution like the AirGuard help to monitor the indoor air quality.

The post How Humidity affects Asthma appeared first on ASN Home.

• To measure is to know
• Preventive Maintenance
• Prevent Costs and nuisance in the event of a breakdown or bad functioning
• Take the right decisions at the right time
• Track & Trace

 To measure is to know

First, ‘to measure is to know’. You can only be in control of your processes, when you know how they are doing. Therefore, you need to measure.

However, AIOT is booming, still, many companies are in the blind how their processes are functioning.  Or insights are only piecemeal, insight in a machine here, a process there. Which means a company isn’t in control of their whole process.

Preventive Maintenance

Know the extent to which your machines are wearing out. Prevent them from breaking down and schedule maintenance at the least bad time. In doing so, your employees can pay attention to the parts that need their attention the most: sensors keep an eye on the ‘normally’ running parts.

Prevent Costs and nuisance in the event of a breakdown or bad functioning

In many cases, a machine is a part of chain of a whole production process. Thus, a breakdown of one machine means downtime for your whole process.

With IoT, you can create new ways and do more with the same budget. Many industries are working in heavy circumstances because of dust, wind, heat, pressure, etcetera. So, it’s important to recognize if the equipment is still working properly.  With IoT, you can predict and prevent equipment failure by monitoring product wear and replacement rates.  As such, you improve the reliability of your assets and reduce downtime. And if you recognize little faults, you can solve them easily before they have become big and expensive problems.

Take the right decisions at the right time

Having control means that you can take the right decision at the right time. E.g.:

• To replace a motor of a machine
• Adjust the circumstances, e.g., the indoor quality in your office, the temperature in your cooling

• For both doctor and patient: Is the healing process going well?  Give the proper attention to patients who needs it. Instead of giving attention to every patient, without enough time. And even better:  You can optimize the healing process
• Does the patient follow the medical instructions? Examples: is he doing his therapy on time and in the right way. Does he take his medications?  Especially groups of risk can be monitored so that timely action can be taken if necessary

Track & Trace

• Keep grip on the presence of all your assets at all times
• Keep grip on the production process, by knowing at any moment where parts are in the phase of a production process
• Know where employees and visitors are on your premises, e.g., to avoid them entering hazardous areas. Or to warn them in case of calamities. And avoid unwanted visitors enter your premises

Optimal circumstances

• Create optimal conditions for your employees. For example in the office by regulating a good indoor climate, which fortunately is getting more and more attention. Poor air quality can worsen the well-being of employees and visitors. It can also lead to lower productivity, for example because people feel lazy when the temperature is too high.
• Some products and services are highly dependent on maintaining optimum conditions, such as cooling, for example, perishable products. When these conditions are no longer met, all products in a batch may have to be destroyed. Through IoT you can monitor whether these optimal conditions still apply. This allows you to intervene immediately when these conditions deteriorate.

See also:

The Benefits of AIOT: “Lower Costs or More Efficiency”

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What are Volatile Organic Compounds?

As said, these are organic chemicals that become a gas at low temperature levels. Or more practically put: they become gas at room temperature.

Or more scientific:

Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs are organic chemical compounds whose composition makes it possible for them to evaporate under normal indoor atmospheric conditions of temperature and pressure

They have a low boiling point, which results in high vapor pressure. This causes many molecules to evaporate or sublimate from the liquid or solid form of the compound to enter the surrounding air. This is called volatility: the ease of a substance to vaporize at a given temperature.

The EPA remarks: “Normal indoor atmospheric conditions of temperature and pressure used here refers to the range of conditions usually found in buildings occupied by people. Thus, depending on the type of building and its geographic location, the temperatures could be from the mid-30s (in Fahrenheit degrees) to the 90° F range and the pressure could be from sea level to the elevation of mountains where buildings might be located. This is not to be confused with “Standard Temperature and Pressure,” often used in analysis and presentation of scientific studies, but defined variously by different authorities. The most used, although not universally adopted, definitions are those of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). IUPAC’s standard is a temperature of 0° C (273, 15 K, 32° F) and an absolute pressure of 100 kPa (14.504 psi), NIST’s definition is a temperature of 20° C (293, 15 K, 68° F) and an absolute pressure of 101.325 kPa (14.696 psi).”

Some examples of VOC’s are:

• Benzene
• Ethylene glycol
• Formaldehyde
• Methylene chloride
• Tetrachloroethylene
• Toluene

But in fact, there are thousands of VOC’s. And they are everywhere. They occur naturally or may be human-made.

They can be generated from many products, such as paints, glues, fossil fluids. Some everyday examples you might not even realize: terpenes released when you peel an orange. Or the squalene from human skin oil. When they react with ozone, they form even more toxic molecules.

Some VOCs are immediately dangerous to the environment or humans, but mostly are not. Other VOCs are non-hazardous. If a VOC has impact on your health depends on indoor concentration, time spent indoors and hazardousness of the VOC.

If VOCs are harmful, these are mostly long-term health effects. However, there is still much research to be done. And as stated in the previous article, they may not be harmful for your health, but may lessen your sense of well-being and productivity.

The post What are Total of Volatile Organic Compounds (TOVC)? appeared first on ASN Home.

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interface F = {10,400,2,44}; // frequency spec (2 bands for bandstop)
interface TW ={1,40,2,12}; // Band transition width
interface N = {20,300,1,36};

Main() // main loop

Freq={F,F+TW};   // frequency specification

Hd=firwin(N,Freq,"hanning","lowpass","numeric");

Hd=firlp2notch(Hd,"void");
Hd=augment(Hd,Hd,"void"); // compensate for 180 phase shift by cascading a second filter

Num=getnum(Hd);
Den=getden(Hd);
Gain=getgain(Hd);

// Biomedical HPF + FIR notch filter.
// This notch filter removes 50/60Hz power line interference while
// maintaining linear phase around the notch cut-off frequency. The DC offset
// and low frequencies are removed via the H1 IIR HPF.
//
// Copyright Advanced Solutions Nederland 2021
// Revision: 1.00

interface F = {10,400,2,44}; // frequency spec (2 bands for bandstop)
interface TW ={1,40,2,12}; // Band transition width
interface R ={10,80,5,40}; // Band transition width
interface N = {20,300,1,36};

Main() // main loop 

Freq={F,F+TW};   // frequency specification

//Hd=firkaiser(Freq*fsunits,R,"lowpass","numeric");
Hd=firwin(N,Freq,"hanning","lowpass","numeric");

Hd=firlp2notch(Hd,"void");
Hd=augment(Hd,Hd,"void"); // compensate for 180 phase shift by cascading a second filter

Hd1=dcremover(2,"void");

Num=getnum(Hd);
Den=getden(Hd);
Gain=getgain(Hd);

H1Num=getnum(Hd1);
H1Den=getden(Hd1);
H1Gain=getgain(Hd1);

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To control

• Does the patient follow the medical instructions? Examples: is he doing his therapy on time and in the right way. Does he take his medications?  Especially groups of risk can be monitored so that timely action can be taken if necessary
• Is treatment going well?  For both doctor and client alike. And even better:  You can optimize the healing process
• Do medically devices still give the right measurement?

To optimize

• Optimize your treatment: Compare the treatment results from your client with your other clients. And thus, find out point of improvement
• Give attention for those who need it. Nobody wants to spend time unnecessary in a waiting room
• Better use of existing resources
• Connect systems with each other
• Take the right decisions at the right time
• Preventive maintenance Security

To innovate

• Better serve your clients
• Be at the forefront of medical developments
• Track & trace
• Create optimal circumstances with modern technology

To save

• Give the client the best care
• Spend your budget where most needed
• To prevent is better than to cure
• Prevent greater suffering, avoid extra high costs
• Nobody is waiting for unnecessary treatment
• Preventive maintenance on medical devices prevents higher repair costs and downtime

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