Edge computing enables many businesses and organizations to analyze large amounts of data in the field or on devices in real time. This could open up new opportunities in new revenue streams, increased productivity and cost reductions. The Internet of Things world is constantly innovating, making edge use cases more compelling, including smart homes, wearables, AR video games, and increasingly intelligent self-driving vehicles.
As more and more enterprises move computing and analysis functions to the edge, edge use cases are rapidly being used across industries. This is because some companies want to reduce network latency, while others want a better understanding of what is happening in industries such as people, crops or oil RIGS.
“Edge computing enables many businesses and organizations to analyze large amounts of data in the field or on their devices in real time,” says Shamik Mishr, chief technology officer of research engineering and research at consulting firm Capgemini. This could open up some new opportunities in terms of new revenue streams, increased productivity and cost reductions.”
In fact, the Internet of Things world is constantly innovating, making edge use cases more compelling, including smart homes, wearables, AR video games, and increasingly intelligent self-driving vehicles. Research firm Gartner expects the global market for Internet of Things platforms to grow to $7.6 billion by 2024, including both in-house and cloud deployments. The company sees PaaS as a key driver of enterprise adoption of digital solutions.
Allied Market Research projects a $16.5 billion Market potential worldwide by 2025, driven by the desire to avoid network latency issues and limit bandwidth usage for storing data in the cloud. The company also expects the framework and language of 5G and the Internet of Things to offer lucrative opportunities for market growth in the coming years.
5G, cloud computing and the Internet of Things all support multiple use cases, and their convergence is driving the growth of innovative use cases, said Bob Moore, partner and leader of PWC’s professional services network.
“While it is easy to identify the role of various technologies in delivering these new experiences, it is difficult to identify which value chain models will be successful and sustainable,” Moore said. The current deployment is providing technical value, but business development and economic sustainability remains to be seen.”
Edge computing is still evolving and improving, but there are some interesting use cases and more to come. Here are 10 ways organizations across industries are taking advantage of edge computing.
1. John Deere is committed to modernizing agriculture
Data sharing enabled by the Internet of Things and cloud computing could improve the efficiency of farming crops. Farmers who use equipment provided by John Deere benefit from predictive maintenance and remote management. This is because edge computing enables real-time data sharing.
John Deere’s tractors and planters, for example, can accurately plant more than 700 corn seeds and 2,800 soybean seeds per second. The planter can sense soil conditions within a second and make decisions and adjustments based on its surroundings. Edge computing helps farmers ensure that their machines plant seeds at the most accurate depth and location. Better decisions can lead to better harvests.
Julian Sanchez, director of emerging technologies at John Deere, said: “Quick and accurate decision making is crucial in every industry, but it is particularly important in agriculture. Before iot and connectivity, many farmers had to wait for their crops to be harvested before they could collect any data on the growth performance of their crops. This makes it difficult to make effective decisions for the next planting season. Now with real-time data, farmers can make adjustments as they work in the field instead of waiting months to find out how their crops have been harvested.”
2. Military, law enforcement and emergency responders gain situational awareness
Military, law enforcement, and emergency responders need to know what’s happening in a given situation and be able to gather intelligence in real time.
“Edge computing brings new speed and flexibility to on-the-spot situational awareness,” said Mary Beth Hall, Director of wireless business strategy, Panasonic System Solutions North America. “For example, being able to safely process video from an edge drone or robot, being able to quickly provide users with awareness of their surroundings, SaaS solutions hosted in cloud platforms push this data to organizations so they can view operations in near real-time.”
3. Manufacturers can improve profitability while reducing their carbon footprint
Many manufacturers are grappling with the problem of material waste in production, which can include excess material that is not needed to make a product, as well as a batch of defective products. Manufacturers can use edge-driven machine learning to identify defects in real time so that errors can be corrected during the production of defective products.
According to Sastry Malladi, CHIEF technology officer at FogHorn, an edge AI platform provider, “Factories that can make real-time decisions about yield optimization can save an estimated $14 million per year. These types of waste reduction projects also have a positive impact on the environment. Edge computing-driven schemes can help the manufacturing industry reduce its carbon emissions by millions of tonnes by reducing waste from the manufacturing process.”
4. Offshore drilling improves uptime
When drilling equipment does not work properly, the efficiency of an offshore rig decreases. To improve uptime, enterprise AI software provider C3 Has developed an AI application that remotely monitors assets on offshore drilling platforms. These assets include compressors, control valves, and water pumps, which are typical failure points in a rig subsystem.
“Risk scores utilize data points collected every five to 15 minutes and displayed on user interface (UI) dashboards so operators can take action before a failure occurs,” said Varun Khanna, ARTIFICIAL intelligence and machine learning analyst at Gigaom. In addition, the digital twin system for each asset plots throughput, pressure, temperature and other metrics, as well as simple analysis. Key tangible value drivers were increased uptime for rig equipment, reduced operating costs and maintenance, and ensured production. In addition, this improves the safety and efficiency of the rig.”
5. Expand video analytics
The installation of cameras is usually divided into two kinds: one is wireless camera, the other is wired camera. Wireless cameras are cheap, but the solution doesn’t scale well because the Wi-Fi connection can’t support the extra load and accommodate other traffic. Wired cameras can provide higher quality video and provide automated video analysis, but wiring costs are high.
“The ideal solution is to be able to support a large number of wireless cameras and be able to do inexpensive automated video analysis,” said Jim Poole, vice president of business development at Equinix, a data center and infrastructure provider. 5G and multiaccess edge computing address this problem and enable applications such as active security, scenario analysis (for example, counting the number of people in and out of doors), and inventory monitoring.”
6. Utilities improve grid uptime
Edge computing enables utilities to make decisions in real time to ensure reliable delivery of power in abnormal situations. For example, when a monitoring device detects a power outage, it immediately provides utility companies with concise, accurate and actionable information.
“With this information, utilities can accurately determine the extent and location of power outages, even before customers report them,” said Tim Driscoll, director of information management outcomes at Itron, a provider of energy and water management solutions. With access to real-time information and remote response capabilities, utilities can improve grid efficiency, reliability, and security.”
7. Online gaming becomes more fluid
Latency, throughput, and availability are the top concerns of online gamers. Edge computing architectures and platforms can help them connect to each other in low-latency, high-throughput environments.
“The challenge for game providers is to optimize the online gaming experience for their users,” said Vipin Jain, chief technology officer and co-founder of Pensando, a next-generation platform provider. The architecture has high availability because it reduces the dependence on external networks.”
8. The retail experience will become more personal
According to Jason Shepherd, vice president of member ecosystems at ZEDEDA, an edge choreography solution provider, computer vision is a top edge computing application because its ability to “see” events in the physical world offers opportunities for innovation in areas such as object identification, security and quality control. He foresees retail applications where computer vision will usher in a new wave of services in brick-and-mortar stores, providing employees with real-time insights into current customers and informing long-term marketing decisions.
Shepherd said, “because of privacy issues, the focus will be mainly concentrated in the initial evaluation of shoppers demographic information (such as age, gender and location, but we will see more and more personalized shopping experience based on personal identity, and often through customer loyalty programs to trigger appropriate choice, this includes the new ‘experience’ shopping center, A lot of customers want to give up some privacy when they walk through the door in exchange for a better experience.”
9. Universal ideas will emerge
What if there is a big difference in software between smartphones and iot devices like smart homes? What if the Android and iOS experiences are vastly different?
“Moving from Android to iOS can be messy today, but in the future it won’t matter which phone you own,” said Liran Weiss, co-founder of Omnichannel Device lifecycle and automation solutions MCE Systems. The benefit to users is a seamless, easy-to-use cross-device experience. The benefit to operators is that they will control events. The people who have a relationship with the user can control the lifecycle and the experience.”
Weiss says there is no single standard in the industry, but he hopes to unify the consumer experience, for example by providing a single TV access point with a universal remote.
10. Machines in manufacturing workshops run more reliably
Industrial manufacturer Harrison Cast Steel uses electric arc furnaces and other precision machinery in its 650, 000-square-foot plant floor. Connecting the machines to the network was expensive, so the company’s IT department used Sneakernet-style USB drives instead of data transfers.
Shane Rogers, IT director at Harrison Steel Foundry, chose Scale Computing’s edge Computing solution. You can now use small clusters of hyper-converged machines on the shop floor that regularly collect machine and production data. This enables production employees to make data-driven decisions about their production processes and machine maintenance. In addition, the speed and ease of data access facilitates defect analysis and enables faster quality improvement.
“In order to consistently produce precision-engineered steel castings, it is critical that we collect and analyze data as close to the source as possible to ensure that our machines are continuously calibrated,” Rogers said. Extreme conditions in and around electric arc furnaces are another challenge for traditional infrastructure to collect data. Our hyper-converged infrastructure takes up very little space and uses very little power, so it can be placed wherever it is needed, enabling us to leverage data to make smarter decisions and produce better products.” (The article is from D1Net, thanks)