The 4,000 exhibitors that took part in Hannover Messe included the industrial technology giants that you would expect: Siemens, IFM, and SAP to name a few. Of course, there were many medium-sized companies, but there were also more than 300 startups, reflecting how much innovation is going on in this space. They addressed a broad range of technologies, from novel materials to the blockchain, machine learning, augmented reality, digital twins, and IT/OT converging. All of this helped drive interest in the show, which drew more than 75,000 participants.

For POLYN, our mission was to leverage the interest in predictive maintenance and condition monitoring, and demonstrate how deep learning approaches optimize the processes and add more efficiency. We had the chance to discuss our VibroSense solution with scores of interested visitors to our booth.

VibroSense is a revolutionary, always-on analog chip utilizing deep learning that reduces data volume by 1000 times on-device by extracting only useful data and consumes only 100 µW of power. This groundbreaking solution is a game-changer for the Industry 4.0, enabling edge devices to immensely extend battery life or to operate on energy harvesting.

In conversations with potential customers, industry analysts, and following our presentation at the event, CEO Alexander Timofeev heard many positive testimonials about our technology and what we are doing. We look forward to working with interested visitors on their novel solutions.

We were also there to learn. And what we learned was that solutions are going to the edge for many reasons, primarily infrastructure and operation complexity, storage capacity, and network overflow. Solutions obviously must be wireless for simplicity of installation and maintenance. They also need to be affordable: the economics are key to customers. Finally, they also have to address ethical, privacy, and security concerns.

Our neuromorphic solution answers most of these challenges. And while sensor makers understand the situation very well, the last word is the customer’s. So one of the important roles of the companies implementing AI/ML into Industry 4.0 is to be evangelists, explaining the right way to deploy, highlighting use cases, and paying attention to the subtleties that create trust and confidence.