Q&A: Ray Chang from NEXCOM shares vision for smarter future

Ray Chang, VP of Global Sales at NEXCOM spoke to IoT Insider following its showcase at embedded world, discussing its solutions for Edge computing and robotics, as well as how it is driving green manufacturing forward.

NEXCOM’s involvement in Edge computing dates back to eight or nine years ago, when it began working closely with NVIDIA as a partner on the system modules it delivers, more specifically for its autonomous transportation business. 

“Industrial automation is very popular now but we caught the trend by looking into the future,” explained Chang. “We saw the trend 10 years ago and that’s when we started working on different applications. One application we’ve been working on has been the autonomous market.” 

Thanks to the development of artificial intelligence (AI) more notably the hardware shrinking in size and cost, autonomous applications have grown.

“If you’re talking about the autonomous market the most important thing is safety,” said Chang. 

As a consequence, the data calculated and analysed needs to be precise, which prior to the rise of AI, was challenging to sort through.

“Now we can build AI into the embedded computer and do the analysis locally. We can shorten the channel, we can choose another time to communicate between the local [device] and data centre and we can have better local decision making.”

At embedded world its Advanced Telematics Computer (ATC) was one solution from its Edge computing portfolio that was on show. The ATC is powered by NVIDIA JETSON and delivers real-time AI inference for transportation, in-vehicle and railways systems.

Robotic automation

In the area of robotic automation, NEXCOM are thinking deeply about solving the issue of interoperability: the adoption of robots and robot arms in factories is continuing to grow in line with greater pressures placed on them by labour shortages, but robot arms designed by different manufacturers with proprietary standards means that factory operators don’t have interoperable equipment that can communicate with one another; a topic that Jenny Shern, General Manager of its subsidiary NexCOBOT spoke about in an interview last year.

“Robot arms are getting more and more popular. In the past, possibly only large automotive factories were using the arms, but now, even factories that are doing simple electronics are using arms,” said Chang, reflecting just how ubiquitous robots are today. 

NEXCOM manufactures industrial controllers that are interoperable to help with this challenge. At embedded world, the company displayed its dual EtherCAT AI robotic controller powered by the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin module, featuring a self-developed real-time operating system and Dual EtherCat master-supported AI robot controller. 

By basing the controller on the Ethercat standard, Chang noted, NEXCOM is ensuring compatibility with robots that use this controller including humanoids, quadrupeds, and robot arms.

Green manufacturing

A significant opportunity for NEXCOM rests in the net zero targets companies from around the world have set themselves: “There are 130 countries in the world that have the goal of net zero emissions by 2050,” explained Chang. “In order to achieve that, a green manufacturing facility is a must.”

There are three important elements behind building a green manufacturing facility, Chang noted: machine to machine communications; open standards; and data sharing. 

NEXCOM supports green manufacturing facilities by offering a customisable service for customers in Taiwan whereby they monitor the energy consumption of a facility through installing power meters that collect this information and can perform later analysis to understand energy consumption on a month-by-month and year-by-year basis. This then results in the installation of renewable energy sources so the facility is powered in a cleaner way.

In sharing insights into Edge computing, robotics and green manufacturing, Chang demonstrated how NEXCOM is thinking about a smarter future, backed by sophisticated solutions and know-how.

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