Industrial Technology Research Institute

ITRI to Exhibit Innovation Awards Honorees Scrabble-Playing Robot and Portable Pesticide Detector along with other AI Technologies at CES 2018

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) on November 9 (EST) announced that Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) had two of its technologies named CES 2018 Innovation Awards Honorees: Intelligent Vision System (IVS) for Companion Robots in the Robotics and Drones category, and Handheld Pesticide Residue Detector in Home Appliances. The honorees will be showcased at its booth LVCC, South Hall 2 - 25611 at CES 2018 in Las Vegas during January 9-12, 2018. Visitors can play Scrabble with a robot, use a portable pesticide detector while washing fruits and vegetables, and view other innovative artificial intelligence (AI), smart city and battery technologies.

The annual CES Innovation Awards program honors outstanding product design and engineering in brand-new consumer technology products. Honorees are those whose products scored highly across all judging criteria, including engineering, aesthetic, and design qualities, user value, positive impact to quality of life, and competitiveness in the marketplace. Past honorees include leading companies such as Google, Bosch, and ASUS. This year enterprises such as Intel, Amazon, and Texas Instruments were selected.

Intelligent Vision System (IVS) for Companion Robots

ITRI’s Intelligent Vision System (IVS) for Companion Robots integrates AI, 3D vision recognition, and eye-hand coordination technologies to play Scrabble, pour beverages, and learn from experience. It is able to perceive objects based on their size, shape, color, and location, and recognize vocabulary. It allows a robot to grasp and move objects without collisions and can be applied both in consumer and industrial environments. When playing Scrabble, the IVS robot uses its 3D vision sensor to detect cell and tile positions on the square grid. It can recognize individual letters and the words spelled by players and can determine the spelling that scores highest from possible letter combinations. After recognizing the letters on the tiles and acquiring all the data through its vision, the robot drives its arm to move and grab accordingly. The robot can also calculate the scores of the players accurately and rapidly.

The Handheld Pesticide Residue Detector

The Handheld Pesticide Residue Detector is a portable device to determine whether pesticide residues are within a safe range when washing fruits or vegetables. It employs Fabry-Perot Detection Spectrum System and Dynamic Degradative Algorithm to enable real-time monitoring of pesticide washing process. It can detect eight washable pesticides from the top 10 pesticide ranking lists in the U.S. and China, and can also detect fat-soluble pesticides up to a 0.5 ppm detection limit. The device is easy to operate and read. It displays red, yellow, and green lights indicating results. A red flashing light indicates danger, meaning further washing is needed; a yellow flashing light displays while washing is in progress; and a green flashing light signals that washing is complete. Compared to conventional laboratory detection techniques, ITRI’s Handheld Pesticide Residue Detector requires no pre-processing and delivers an immediate result, making a breakthrough in pesticide detection for consumer use.

Other ITRI exhibits at CES 2018 include more novel AI applications. RAIBA (Reconfigurable Array of Inexpensive Batteries Architecture), an intelligent battery system that uses self-learning and optimization technology, reconfigures a battery array to suit specific load requirements. STOBA™  (Self-Terminated Oligomer with Hyper-Branched Architecture) is a battery safety material that reduces fire hazard of lithium-ion batteries. DeepLook is the world’s first large-scale cloud-based video analytics technology to track stolen vehicles or monitor tailgating. Genki Bot uses AI to optimize a user’s sleep environment by recommending songs, sounds, and lighting. ITRI MusicAI, containing deep neural network (DNN) models, can classify musical genres and compose new music. LIM-3D, a multi-layer 3D antenna design and manufacturing technology, integrates 4G LTE MIMO multi-antenna or 5G antenna systems into smart handset terminals. Optical Camera Communications (OCC) technology utilizes LEDs and smartphone camera to achieve visible light communications, introducing a new way of distributing and displaying information. All technologies demonstrate ITRI’s innovation capability of offering breakthrough solutions for smart living.