Using edge technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads can be run closer to the edge without having to send large amounts of data to the cloud. The edge technology of these devices makes them ideal for the following applications.
Edge of the Internet of Things. Edge computing is due to the massive growth of IoT devices. These devices will connect to the Internet and send or receive data from the cloud. Sometimes they need to transfer large amounts of data during operation. Therefore, IoT edge refers to the concept of using IoT gateways to enable users to perform edge computing using IoT devices. Edge computing devices can be used as gateways or data processing units.
Industry 4.0 and the edge of the Industrial Internet of Things. Edge computing devices combine industrial IoT devices. For example, industrial IoT sensors on conveyor belts on the production floor may transmit data (wireless or wired) to edge computing hardware in the field. Then, the edge device runs AI analysis, any ML algorithm, or any type of data processing to gain insights without the need to send the data to the cloud.
Some examples of edge computing device use cases
Smart factory
As mentioned earlier, the industrial IoT edge is a combination of industrial IoT devices, their data, and edge intelligence applied to the data. The advantages of the Industrial Internet of Things can be applied to smart factories, including one of the most popular use cases: manufacturing plants. When edge computing is combined with private 5G, the smart factory can connect all its industrial IoT sensors to edge computing devices. The device can use dedicated 5G wireless transmission of industrial IoT data to other branches or headquarters.
COVID-19 prevention
COVID-19 prevention. Having computer vision capabilities at the edge (especially at the main entrance) may help prevent COVID-19 infection. For example, a set of cameras, a high-performance edge computing device and computer vision algorithms will help enforce COVID-19 compliance through video intelligence. Solutions like this can detect people without masks, promote social distancing through crowd detection, create a watch list of infected people (with face recognition), and use thermal imaging to automatically detect fever at the entry point.
Smart City
Some of the qualities of a "smart city" are intelligent systems such as IoT sensors, networks, and video surveillance. These systems can use edge computing to provide faster response and safer urban applications. Real case scenarios of how edge computing devices are used in smart cities may include: detecting traffic abnormalities, bad drivers, abnormal people, criminals through facial recognition, intelligent transportation systems, water treatment, garbage management, etc.
retail store
Edge computing devices may also benefit retail stores. Store endpoints such as POS terminals, inventory servers, payment controllers, etc. can be virtualized and centrally managed (remotely or locally) through edge computing servers. This is called a software-defined retail store. Running computationally intensive workload integration equipment can ensure that multiple virtual machines run simultaneously. It also provides an opportunity to connect to the peripherals of the storage device.
Smart farm
Edge computing helps to process data collected from farms or agricultural environments without the need to quickly connect to the cloud. Farms are usually rural environments, which can be difficult for the application of technology. Edge computing devices can operate under extreme temperature conditions and provide computing-intensive workload processing at the edge. Practical use cases of edge intelligence in rural areas may include precision agriculture, drone surveillance or rural video surveillance, water flow monitoring, etc.
Micro data centers and mobile edge computers
Micro data centers are sometimes used interchangeably with edge computing. But in fact, the micro data center is just a small modular data center architecture box, which can work in almost any environment. Edge computing devices can operate as core computing elements in micro data centers. The mobile edge computer is the same as the micro data center, but for the mobile network. Mobile edge computers process, store, stream and provide security at the edge of the mobile network, usually in the wireless access network rather than in the core.