A cloud-based AI platform for remote controlled plant monitoring

April 21, 2021 12:47 pm

Yokogawa aims to work with DOCOMO to increase the efficiency of Autonomous Controlled plants by achieving low latency on wireless devices. Whereas DOCOMO  will verify and optimise the communication environment for water tank controls.

• Yokogawa undertakes PoC Test for 5G, Cloud, and AI for Autonomous functioning of plants.

Yokogawa Electric Corporation has recently signed a joint agreement with NTT DOCOMO, INC. to undertake a proof of concept test (PoC) for the remote control of a plant system by utilising 5th generation mobile communications (5G), the cloud, AI, and other technologies.

The PoC will involve the use of cloud-based Yokogawa AI for plant control and a 5G communication module mounted on a three-tank level control system to remotely control the water level. This test aims to demonstrate the ease with which companies in the chemical, oil and other process industries will be able to modify their existing systems to make use of cutting-edge 5G autonomous control devices with the latest cloud-based AI.

With the goal of achieving autonomous control in plants in the future, Yokogawa will work together with DOCOMO to verify and optimise this technology.

Driven in part by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a dramatic increase in the need for improvements in production safety and efficiency that can be achieved through autonomous plant control.

Yokogawa conducted a survey of ‘Process Industries’ last year in which 64 percent of respondent said that they anticipate that plants will fully have autonomous operations by 2030 and that autonomous control mechanisms using AI and other technologies without human intervention will become increasingly common. However, given the latency in communication that occurs between the cloud and device controllers when conventional wireless communications are used, there has been a major technological challenge when it came to autonomous remote control of plant systems.

This Proof of Concept test will examine whether the technical challenge of achieving low latency can be solved by using DOCOMO’s high-speed, large-capacity, low-latency 5G communications network, the DOCOMO Open Innovation Cloud, which offers multi-access edge computing (MEC) to achieve low-latency and meet other such requirements of the 5G era as well as other cloud technologies. Yokogawa has already completed a trial of an autonomous control system based on its proprietary AI technology that successfully controlled the water level in a three-tank level control system, a task that is generally acknowledged to be very difficult and the technology that was used is considered within the industry to be among the most advanced of its type. 

In the PoC, by the end of March 2022, Yokogawa will work with DOCOMO to construct a demonstration environment for the cloud-based remote control of the water level in a three-tank level control system using the AI and undertake, among other things, comparison and evaluation of communication performance between LTE and 5G.

Kenji Hasegawa, Vice President and Head, Yokogawa Products Headquarters, said, “Yokogawa has long played a leading role in the development of distributed control systems that control and monitor the operation of plant production facilities and we have supported the growth of a wide range of industries. With a view towards a future in which industries adopt autonomous operations, we are now promoting IA2IA (Industrial Automation to Industrial Autonomy). Through the linking of 5G with the cloud, Yokogawa’s AI, and device controllers, we believe that we can make a great contribution in achieving plants whose systems can be remotely controlled and are fully capable of operating autonomously. Along with NTT DOCOMO, we will work to create further value for our customers.”

Through the PoC, Yokogawa will work with DOCOMO to create new value and contribute to the development of not only process industries but all other industries as well.