At the 2021 5G World Summit, Haier and Huawei received the Most Innovative Edge Computing Product Award with their jointly developed Cloud-edge Collaborative 5G Industrial Machine Vision Inspection solution. The award also represents recognition of Haier and Huawei’s outstanding achievements in digital transformation and the economic and social benefits that this can bring.
Haier and Huawei Win “Most Innovative Edge Computing Product” Award
The proliferation of 5G networks in recent years provides a foundation for the development of the global digital economy. Haier and Huawei are cooperating in the realm of industrial manufacturing by developing and improving technologies such as machine vision, artificial intelligence, AR/VR, and digital twins, and expanding the innovative use of 5G+MEC for industry convergence. Such technologies have allowed the manufacturing system of Haier’s pioneering smart factory to become more digital and intelligent during the entire production process, from product design, assembly, quality inspection, warehousing and transportation, to production management.
In intelligent quality inspection scenarios, industrial cameras are used to upload massive quantities of HD photos to the cloud for processing. However, traditional 5G networks cannot provide the required uplink bandwidth. The Cloud-edge Collaborative 5G Industrial Machine Vision Inspection solution uses Huawei’s lossless compression technology to achieve 3-6 times lossless compression of HD images at the device end. Working in conjunction with the decompression algorithm on the MEC, “super uplink” is achieved and the problem of insufficient uplink bandwidth is resolved. Cloud-edge collaboration also promotes continuous improvement of the quality inspection algorithm, resulting in an inspection accuracy of up to 99% and effectively reducing the product repair rate and costs.
Since the establishment of a 5G MEC joint innovation base, Huawei and Haier have jointly unveiled three innovation platforms for 5G machine vision applications, 5G video surveillance applications, and 5G data collection, respectively. 5G technologies have been developed and used commercially in more than 10 scenarios, significantly improving operational efficiency, reducing maintenance costs, and increasing the flexibility of the manufacturing process. Haier has also begun the process of replicating the technologies pioneered at its 5G smart factory in Qingdao to its various facilities across the world, and plans to share successful solutions with other enterprises in order to facilitate the digital and intelligent transformation of the entire industry. This sharing of technologies also contributes to the implementation of the ambitious Made in China 2025 plan.
Building on the achievements of Haier’s 5G smart factory, Huawei plans to explore more opportunities in the fields of 5G+MEC and the industrial internet, and promote the combination of new technologies, such as edge computing and artificial intelligence, to build a 5G edge computing innovation framework that covers all scenarios and industries. Huawei is also dedicated to working closely with operators and industry partners to launch more projects that apply 5G+MEC technologies.
