The world is accelerating. Technology is propelling. To stay in the forefront of innovation and the market, companies need to embrace AI, platforms and the crowd. But to be good, they also need to focus on their core competences. So let's team up.
The title of this blog article was inspired by Andrew McAfee's and Eric Brynjolfsson's awesome book "Machine, Platform, Crowd - Harnessing our digital future".
In times of exponential growth and change, we need to
- benefit from platforms, AI and the crowd
- create cross sectional teams of experts
to create forward-looking solutions.
Radar - the Eyes of a Machine
Radar technology, but also lidar and sonar (depending on the environment and the application) are the eyes of a system. In contrast to a photographic image, the radar images are quantitative, meaning they give clear information on distance, speed, or direction of movement.
Radars are important in air traffic surveillance, but increasingly also in many mechatronic applications. I.e., those systems which need to get input from the environment benefit from "radar eyes". Applications are multiple in automation, medicine, traffic, etc.
The time of island solutions is over
Innovative systems will benefit from cloud based AI, from platforms, and data and from the crowd. The crowd stands for many users who actively or passively provide valuable evidence.
Artificial Intelligence and Learning Machines
In the near future we expect that no sophisticated system will remain competitive, when it excludes artificial intelligence.
The head margin through intelligent reasoning and self-improvement driven by AI will be game-critical.
Platforms
Platforms will become the heart-lung machines for innovative infrastructures.
Currently people think of the classical green-field cloud infrastructure, where you can place home-grown algorithms in a scalable way. But there is much more to it:
- SAP, Siemens, Microsoft and many others are ramping up to become ERP and Automation-as-a-Service Platforms. Imagine that only a handful of providers supply more than 90% of the worlds ERP systems and factory control systems (SCADA). ERP and factory automation are getting closer and more integrated. Both are moving towards as-a-Service models. Every player who wants to be part of the game needs to integrate with the relevant APIs.
- AI algorithms come as a service through few platforms. Their relevance is growing on a daily basis
- Medical Platforms are just emerging with platforms like Google Health or the Philips HealthSuite digital platform. Competitive activities like Siemens Healthineers are still pretty locked (ecosystems just exist on the user side). But if they want to survive, they will need to open up to benefit from network effects and to keep up with virally growing competition...
- Even for private life, smart home platforms are starting off, as driven by Intel.
Machines of Excellence
If you are producing machines, great hardware will be a central pillar of your success.
Then there will be the advantages generated through connectedness (see above).
But not all can be solved through the cloud. Close to the hardware, we need the right sophisticated algorithms.
Those algorithms which make sure that the possibilities of the machine are used to its max.
And we need the right middleware for optimized communication with the cloud.
SkyRadar develops radar algorithms and AI which is integrated into platforms
Accelerating times require to focus on core competences.
SkyRadar is there to team up with you. We have more than a decade of experience in the intersection of radar algorithms and internet technology, including platforms and cloud communication. SkyRadar's technology has harnessed cloud technology since times, where the great public hasn't been aware of the cloud. SkyRadar has experimented with AI on radars since several years. Our team holds several patents in the fields of sensors in the context of the Internet of Things.
If you are a hardware developer of machines, which need eyesight, or a developer of radar hardware, we will be your perfect match. We provide the most suitable algorithms for your application and the best middleware and communication abstraction to talk to the cloud. We will find the right platform, the suitable user experience and the right strategy to exploit network effects and your gateway to viral growth.
We match AI with your application and turn your product into a learning solution.
We are not the hardware guys; this is you! Together we are a perfect match.
The author, Ulrich Scholten is cofounder of SkyRadar. He has been working on internet platforms since the early 2000s. Ulrich holds a PhD in information technology and owns several patents on cloud-based sensors. His research is regularly published in highly rated journals and conference papers. Dr. Scholten publishes on cloud computing, (radar-based) sensing and the IoT. From 2008 - 2014, he was associated research scientist at the Karlsruhe Service Research Institute (KSRI), a partnership by KIT and IBM, where he researched network effects around web-platforms together with SAP Research.
