VMware, based in Palo Alto, California, is one of the leading providers of multi-cloud services for all applications and, according to its own statement, enables its customers to innovate digitally - without having to relinquish corporate control. At this year's HANNOVER MESSE, the Americans will be presenting themselves alongside two strong technology partners: together with Intel and Kyndryl, VMware wants to demonstrate how smart robotics, based on AI and machine learning (ML), can take over quality assurance on the assembly line. Or how powerful computing power can also be at the far edge, for example in wind turbines, in order to optimise maintenance there.

Small footprint despite grown-up performance

The fact that powerful intelligent robots can be operated via a virtual platform is demonstrated in particular by the technological partnership between VMware and Intel. On this virtual platform, real-time functions for robot control units, computer vision for part recognition and AI/ML for recognition and learning algorithms are functionally combined. The infrastructure footprint for the entire setup fits on a small edge server operated by Intel and running on VMware Edge Stack as the edge computing platform. This minimises the hardware footprint and significantly reduces power consumption and costs without sacrificing a high-performance computing foundation.

Optimised maintenance at the outer edge

Together with Kyndryl, VMware will also illustrate how edge computing in operational technology (OT) at the far edge (also known as the device edge) can result in optimised maintenance and significantly reduced fire risk. The presentation announced for Hanover shows the example of predictive maintenance of wind farms, in which data from thermal imaging cameras on the turbines are processed locally in containerised applications. Built on VMware's lightweight and real-time edge computing platform, AI and ML algorithms are used to detect problems before failure occurs. This is expected to increase safety and reduce wind turbine downtime.

"Edge computing capabilities are being used to gain real-time insights into manufacturing operations, optimise costs, increase energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions. By digitising operations from design to production, companies benefit from more efficient processes across the value chain and become more resilient," said Alexandra Baleta, Senior Director Industry, VMware EMEA.

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