Hitachi has launched digital solutions to automate asset inspection, support sustainability, improve physical security and reduce risks and impacts related to storms or fires. Lumada Inspection Insights supports inspection, monitoring, and optimisation of critical assets, using AI to analyse photographs and video, including LiDAR, thermal and satellite imagery.

Lumada Inspection Insights is designed to address various root causes of failures and forced shutdowns through AI analysis of a spectrum of image types, assets and risks. Predictive analytics assesses the risks to operations or environment, and organisations can streamline remediation before outages occur.

The four core applications in the solution are Hitachi Image Based Inspections, Hitachi Intelligent Infrastructure Monitoring, Hitachi Vegetation Manager, and Hitachi Map.

Hitachi Image Based Inspections provides scalable image inferencing and processing to help asset managers classify assets, detect defects and categorise defect severity. It automates defect assessment, instantly preprocessing and analysing thousands of images. The solution’s optimised human-in-the-loop capabilities enable continuous retraining of model-based subject matter expert input for a range of asset classes and image quality.

Hitachi Intelligent Infrastructure Monitoring leverages video, gathering data though smart cameras, 3D LiDAR sensors and edge gateways, and integrating with CRM, ERP, and other sources of data as required. It is designed to provide operators with granular, continuous 3D intelligence for sensitive areas (such as substations), and discover correlations, causations and real-time incidents.

Hitachi Vegetation Manager is a closed-loop vegetation resource planning solution that employs AI and analytics to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of vegetation job activities and planning efforts. It uses images from a variety of visual sources, including photo, video, and imagery from Maxar satellites. The incorporation of satellite technology allows utilities to survey their entire territory to confirm automatically line clearances and maintain compliance with regulations.

Hitachi Map combines information from applications such as EAM, APM, FSM, ADMS, GIS into a single interactive geospatial view. This approach eliminates extra and duplicative work and reduces carbon emissions from unnecessary travel to and from a site.

Lumada Inspection Insights features microservices-based capabilities that allow visibility of assets and factors such as current state, asset health, and encroachment, in a “single pane of glass” actionable view, from a variety of sources. With these unified insights, organisations can improve safety, reliability, and agility. The use of high-resolution, autonomous, and accurate wide-area surveillance ensures that truck rolls and workforce deployments are optimised, reducing waste and furthering a sustainable approach to operations and maintenance.

Massimo Danieli, Managing Director of Hitachi Energy’s Grid Automation business, said, “The energy transition is one of the most urgent issues of our times and together with customers, we are co-creating pioneering digital solutions to enable the carbon-neutral future.” He added, “In collaboration with Hitachi Vantara, we are delighted to launch the Lumada Inspection Insights portfolio, which gives industrial organisations the tools they need to get the right information to the right teams when they need it most. The result is improved reliability, safety, and sustainability.”

Frank Antonysamy, Chief Digital Solutions Officer, Hitachi Vantara, said, “Becoming data driven is essential to accelerating digitalisation and sustainability. This collaboration across Hitachi creates better outcomes for businesses, broader society and our environment by harnessing data and AI to solve multiple operational and business challenges. Together, we can improve industrial asset reliability, prevent wildfires and accelerate global sustainability efforts.”