n TECHNOLOGY July/August 2025 www.drivesncontrols.com 20 EMERSON HAS ANNOUNCED a softwaredefined operating platform that, it says, will fundamentally change today’s approach to industrial automation. It adds that Project Beyond will be the industry’s first softwaredefined, OT-ready digital platform that integrates and optimises industrial operations. The development follows Emerson’s recent acquisition of the industrial software vendor AspenTech. The new platform brings together aspects of AspenTech’s software with Emerson’s DeltaV distributed control system, and its Boundless Automation platform that integrates operations across the field, the edge and the cloud. The aim is to reduce the costly and complex integration needed to move data between different OT (operational technology) systems and applications. Emerson says that the platform will help investments in automation to deliver value without adding complexity, using innovations such as software-defined control, data management, zero-trust cybersecurity and AI. According to the company, the pace of advances in technology and industrial AI, combined with increased computing power and the unprecedented volume and complexity of siloed industrial data, requires a new, cost-efficient way to apply automation while protecting existing investments. Project Beyond is intended to tackle this by creating a flexible, scalable and secure platform that connects the existing automation base with modern technologies to allow continuous, enterprise-wide visibility, optimisation and, eventually, autonomous operations. It will also offer a way to deploy and manage new AI applications and models, along with contextualised data, to unlock flexibility, safety, sustainability and performance. “Companies are eager to modernise automation and keep pace with the promise of new technologies like AI, without ripping out and replacing their existing infrastructure or dealing with the pain and costs of integrating new applications and millions of fragmented data points,” explains Emerson’s chief operating officer, Ram Krishnan. “Project Beyond will use the power of software-defined control to introduce an entirely new, scalable, seamlessly integrated infrastructure with automated data contextualisation to turn trapped data into powerful operational efficiencies. “By combining Emerson’s automation capabilities with AspenTech’s deep software expertise – from modelling and optimisation to machine learning and AI – we’re embedding AI into our systems, turning information into insights that will help our customers on their journey toward otimised autonomous operations,” he adds. p Yokogawa Electric has formalised a longterm agreement with Shell Global Solutions International to develop and integrate technologies that use robots and drones for plant monitoring and maintenance. Yokogawa will add a Shell-developed machine vision tool called Operator Round by Exception (Ore) into its own OpreX robot management core. Ore uses machine vision and AI analytics to enable robots to perform tasks such as reading gauges and checking for leaks and machinery issues. p Nidec Leroy-Somer has published an environmental profile for its Dyneo+, ultrapremium IE5 motor on the PEP (Product Environmental Profile) ecopassport portal – an international benchmark for objective and comparable environmental declarations for electrical, electronic and HVAC equipment. It is planning to assess the environmental impact of its other products, taking into account their entire lifecycle from manufacturing to end-of-life. p RealSense, a pioneer in AI-powered computer vision, has spun out from Intel and raised $50m of Series A funding. It will operate as an independent company advancing innovation in AI, robotics, biometrics and computer vision. The funding will help it to expand into new markets and to scale its manufacturing, sales and global activities to meet the growing demand for humanoids and AMRs (autonomous mobile robots), as well as AI-powered access control and security systems. www.realsenseai.com p Researchers from the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed standardised testing system for robot sensitivity. At present, it can compare industrial robots. In the future, it will be extended to other systems such as mobile and humanoid robots or robotic hands. Previously, there has not been a standardised procedure for determining robot sensitivity and their fitness for physical interactions. p At the recent Automatica exhibition in Germany, Kuka demonstrated a new robot operating system called iiQKA.OS2 that combines the core of the company’s Kuka System Software (KSS) with a modern interface and modular safety. The OS will initially be available for Kuka’s small robots in 2025, before being rolled out to its entire portfolio. p MVTec Software has launched a new version (25.05) of its MVTec Halcon machine vision software with numerous improvements as well as a new technology called Deep 3D Matching that combines deep learning algorithms with classic methods. Deep 3D Matching is particularly suitable for binpicking and pick-and-place applications. It allows one or more 2D cameras to determine 3D positions. In addition, the software’s neural networks have been optimised for deep learning-based text reading. TECHNOLOGY BRIEFS Emerson says its new platform ‘will change our approach to automation’ YASA, THE UK DEVELOPER of axial-flux electric motors, claims to have achieved the highest power density ever recorded for any electric motor. In recent tests, a prototype motor delivered 550kW of power from a 13.1kg package – equivalent to 42kW/kg. This power density is said to be almost twice as high as the previous benchmark. Yasa says that while the record is unofficial, it represents a major milestone for what’s possible at the cutting edge of high-performance electric motor design. The record-breaking performance was achieved without using exotic materials such as cobalt-iron laminations, Litz wire, or 3D printing. Yasa says the technology could be scaled to produce 10,000–50,000 motors a year at a “viable” cost. The company adds that this is the first in a series of technical breakthroughs that it expects to achieve in the coming months. Yasa claims that its axial-flux technology delivers the highest power/torque densities, for the smallest size and weight. Since 2021 the company has been owned by the Mercedes-Benz Group. Yasa claims world record motor power density, doubling previous benchmarks Emerson COO Ram Krishnan: turning information into insights
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