Embedded Systems Conference

Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Boston, MA

May 15-16, 2019

I conclude my blog post trilogy about Boston’s 2019 Embedded Systems Conference with coverage of the remaining ESC talks. You can peruse my overview article and my coverage of the robotics talks by following the hotlinks. I made the rounds talking to ESC booth vendors, as well as several vendors showcasing at the collocated BIOMEDevice and Design & Manufacturing New England conferences.

In addition to the three robotics talks featured in yesterday’s article, I was treated to presentations about IoT security, 5G, and cloud-to-edge migration, plus the BIOMEDevice keynote talk.

“How to Secure Your IoT Project”

My first presentation was that of IAR Systems’ Shawn Prestridge, “How to Secure Your IoT Project.” He talked about attack vectors, authentication problems, and hardware options; Root of Trust and Chain of Trust; and did a deep-dive into how to secure devices via a secure workflow.

“Fireside Chat: Discussing Medtech 4.0 and the Future of Care”

Scott Huennekens delivered the BIOMEDevice keynote on Wednesday, “Fireside Chat: Discussing Medtech 4.0 and the Future of Care.” Dubbing himself a forward-looking futurist but also a pragmatics, Huennekens noted that in MedTech 3.0, it’s not just the products, but the products are connected, and it’s about the data. A key point of the presentation was the promotion of open architecture. Per Huennekens, open architecture creates opportunity, closed platforms in medtech are slowing development and growth, and open architectures will improve patient access and outcomes.

Digital surgery and robotic surgery were addressed, as was the importance of diversity of culture and people.

“Wrapping Your Head Around 5G: A Primer for the Enterprise Community”

My telecom background and mid-2000s coverage of the millimeter wave and microwave carrier market is the foundation of my strong interest in 5G, so I was looking forward to this presentation by Verizon’s Joshua Ness and Taru Jain, “Wrapping Your Head Around 5G: A Primer for the Enterprise Community.”

Ness touched upon the history of wireless standards (1G through 5G), the difference in 5G capabilities vs. 4G, and some of what 5G will usher into the future by enabling the growth of edge computing.

Jain noted that 5G will driving the fourth industrial revolution. She noted that the four pillars of 5G are fiber, spectrum, software-defined networks, and multi-access edge compute. And she discussed use cases in retail, manufacturing, and healthcare.

And, worth noting since it was at the Embedded Systems Conference, Ness pointed out that Verizon had just, the day of the presentation, rolled out a narrowband IoT network.

In all, a great introduction to 5G for those unfamiliar with it, and a solid recap for those of us already familiar with the technology.

“How to Migrate Intelligence from the Cloud to Embedded Devices at the Edge”

Arm’s Chris Shore went into great depth about “How to Migrate Intelligence from the Cloud to Embedded Devices at the Edge.”

On the topic of security, Shore noted that security cannot be optional, a recurring theme over the course of the last three Embedded Systems Conferences I attended. He touched upon four types of attacks: communication attacks, lifecycle attacks, physical attacks, and software attacks. He discussed software isolation. And he talked about Arm’s Platform Security Architecture.

On the topic of functional safety, Shore gave examples of the need across the industries of automotive (autonomous driving), industrial (factory automation), healthcare (robotic surgery), transportation (train control systems), avionics (flight systems), and consumer (domestic robots). He talks about the need for security as necessary (but not sufficient) for safety. He touched upon types of fault – random faults vs. systematic faults. And he dove into digital signal processing.

Shore closed his presentation with this remark: “Hope that inspires you to create highly-compute capable, safe, secure edge devices on the IoT.”

Conclusion

As always, the Embedded Systems Conference provided an educational, interesting glimpse into the current and future states of the IoT industry. It’s a shame the ESC is ending its run in Boston; it was an event I always circled on my calendar. As noted in my ESC overview article, the Embedded Systems Conference has partnered with the Drive World Conference & Expo for its next incarnation, in Santa Clara, CA in August – August 27-29, 2019.

Embedded Systems Conference

Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Boston, MA

May 15-16, 2019

As I mentioned in my overview article, Boston’s 2019 Embedded Systems Conference included its usual blend of embedded systems/Internet of Things-focused vendors and presentations, but robotics were also at the forefront this year. Or, at least, they were the focus of more of the presentations that caught my attention this year.

“Exploring Real World Applications for Dynamic Robots”

Thursday’s keynote presentation by Boston Dynamics’ Kevin Blankespoor, “Exploring Real World Applications for Dynamic Robots,” discussed the unique capabilities and design-purpose of Boston Dynamics’ quadruped, humanoid, and wheeled robots Spot, Atlas, and Handle. And those in attendance were treated to a demo of Spot led by Boston Dynamics’ Bryan Hollingsworth. Without going into detail, a quadruped robot is great for inspection in industries such as construction, energy, and public safety. A wheeled robot like Handle excels at tasks like moving boxes in warehouses, pallet-building, and unloading trucks. And humanoid robots are great R&D platforms, looking many years into the future.

“Advanced Vision Systems for Safe Human-Robot Interaction”

Veo Robotics’ Patrick Sobalvarro delivered an interesting talk about robot-human interaction, “Advanced Vision Systems for Safe Human-Robot Interaction.” For those of us not familiar with industrial robotics, Sobalvarro provided an exceptionally useful primer regarding the fencing-off of industrial robots and the protocols required when humans enter the robots’ cages in industrial settings. I’ve seen very few presentations about robotics in my career, so I really appreciated the background portion of this presentation; it was informative and set the stage for those of us with limited robotics backgrounds to be able to follow the meatier portions of the talk.

Power and force-limited robots are designed to allow human-robot interactions because if the robots will not injure people if they do come into contact, but they are weak and slow. So Veo Robotics is designing robots that would use a 3D sensing and control system so robots would be able to avoid coming into contact with people entirely.

One of the interesting Q&A questions was about collision avoidance. Veo uses a full-stop safety approach because, as Sobalvarro explained, their customers prefer their robots to follow a planned trajectory, though he could see the possibility of that in the future.

“Introduction to the Robot Operating System”

The PTR Group’s Michael Anderson presented “Introduction to the Robot Operating System.” This presentation dove into the details of ROS, which is “an asynchronous publish/subscribe message-passing middleware.” Designed for writing robot software, of course. Anderson dug deep into the hows and whys of ROS. And noted the differences between ROS and ROS 2. ROS was designed for the single robot use case, while ROS 2 is designed for (among other things) robot swarms.

Coming Next

Those were the three robotics-focused talks I caught at ESC. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s with quick summaries of the other four talks I attended, in and around the time I spent chatting with attendees at their booths.

Embedded Systems Conference

Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Boston, MA

May 15-16, 2019

2019 was my third consecutive year attending the Embedded Systems Conference. An event that brings together key vendors and provides a full slate of interesting talks about the Embedded Systems market, this event co-locates with two others, BIOMEDevice and Design & Manufacturing New England. My usual path through the showcase floor involves meeting all of the ESC vendors and then cherrypicking those from the other conferences involved in tech markets I follow. And, of course, I attend as many of the interesting presentations as I can fit into two days.

This year, as always, the ESC exhibitors were a mix of software, hardware, and consulting services companies, with the usual significant contingent of test and measurement vendors.

The presentations were varied, as well.

A lot of the ESC talks in past years have been security-focused. There were plenty of security talks again this year, but I noticed the robotics portion of the program more this year. I haven’t researched past topics, so the mix may not have been any different, but because one of the two keynotes was robotics-focused it brought the robotics element more to the forefront.

The two keynotes – one each day – were split between the BIOMEDevice program and the ESC/D&M program, to the extent robotics spans both of the co-located non-med conferences.

Wednesday’s keynote featured Scott Huennekens in a “Fireside Chat: Discussing Medtech 4.0 and the Future of Care.” Thursday’s keynote starred Boston Dynamics’ Kevin Blankespoor with “Exploring Real World Applications for Dynamic Robots.”

I also attended a few more Embedded Systems Conferences talks. IAR Systems’ Shawn Prestridge presented “How to Secure Your IoT Project.” Verizon’s Joshua Ness delivered “Wrapping Your Head Around 5G: A Primer for the Enterprise Community.” The PTR Group’s Michael Anderson provided an “Introduction to the Robot Operating System.” ARM’s Chris Shore discussed “How to Migrate Intelligence from the Cloud to Embedded Devices at the Edge.” And Veo Robotics’ Patrick Sobalvarro talked about “Advanced Vision Systems for Safe Human-Robot Interaction.” In subsequent articles, I’ll write about these talks (in varying detail, depending on the quality of my notes).

Looking Ahead

The Embedded Systems Conference has partnered with the Drive World Conference & Expo for its next incarnation, in Santa Clara, CA in August – August 27-29, 2019.

BIOMEDevice returns to Boston next April, April 22-23, 2020, as does Design & Manufacturing New England.

In the meantime, the six-conferences-in-one Advanced Design and Manufacturing conference hits New York, NY June 11-13, 2019. It includes Design & Manufacturing Atlantic – from the D&M New England family – and the Medical Device & Manufacturing East conference, for the medical device contingent.