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Tuesday, December 07 2021 - 13:00
AsiaNet
Toshiba Introduces New Anomaly Detection AI for Large-scale Industrial Plants at ICDM2021 LITSA
TOKYO, Dec. 7, 2021 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ --

Workforce transformation technology handles complex operating conditions across 
massive sensor data, contributes to efficient plant operation and maintenance.


Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) has developed a new anomaly detection AI that 
enables large-scale industrial plants to overcome a widespread and growing 
challenge: using a small workforce to achieve constant and effective monitoring 
of thousands of sensors, and the accurate detection of anomalous signals hidden 
among small variations in sensor values. The AI can currently be applied to 
power and industrial plants that use pumps to move fluids, and is the first of 
its kind*1 to realize high-level accuracy in detecting anomalies in the complex 
interactions between plant operating conditions and massive sensor values. 
Toshiba will present the technology at the 21st IEEE International Conference 
ICDM2021 LITSA Workshop on Data Mining(https://lipn.github.io/LITSA2021/) on 
December 7.

At the core of the AI is Toshiba's "Two-stage Auto-encoder", a proprietary deep 
learning model that delivers highly accurate forecasts of sensor values in 
normal operating conditions; it detects anomaly hidden in massive sensor data 
by identifying deviations in actual values from the forecast values.

Industrial plants that must move fluids with pumps, such as power plants and 
water treatment facilities, use sensors to detect values for both small and 
large fluctuations in operation. Relatively small, rapid fluctuations appear 
simultaneously on a few sensors as a result of pump vibration or a local 
temperature change. Large fluctuations that occur on numerous sensors, with a 
larger amplitude and slower cycle, reflect changes in power and plant operation.

Commenting on the new AI, Susumu Naito, senior research scientist at Toshiba's 
Corporate Research & Development Center, said: "The key factor behind the 
success of this technology is the deep and extensive knowhow Toshiba has gained 
from many years of experience in the energy and infrastructure business. We 
applied this to the design of two deep learning models, one for each 
fluctuation characteristic, and secured very high-level precision in predicting 
normal sensor values. These are compared with actual values to detect 
anomalies."

Tests of the AI on the open datasets of the Water Distribution (WADI) 
testbed(https://itrust.sutd.edu.sg/testbeds/water-distribution-wadi/)*2 
confirmed the highest level of detection accuracy in the industry, a 12% 
improvement against prior art*3. In another test, Toshiba also verified that 
the AI can recognize and report anomalous signs a full 6.8 days earlier than 
possible with manual monitoring by a trained operator. Early detection of 
anomalies allows for condition-based maintenance, and contributes to efficient 
plant operation and maintenance. 

Toshiba is carrying out a demonstration experiment of the AI's online 
monitoring and early-stage anomaly detection at the Mikawa power plant, 
operated by SIGMA POWER Ariake Corporation, a subsidiary of Toshiba Energy 
Systems & Solutions Corporation, in Omuta, Fukuoka, Japan (Figures 2 & 3). 

Moving forward, Toshiba will ready proof-of-concept (PoC) systems and explore 
application on other types of industrial plants. Once it is commercialized, 
Toshiba plans to provide the AI as both an on-premises solution and as a cloud 
solution in the Toshiba SPINEX 
Marketplace(https://www.spinex-marketplace.toshiba/en), Toshiba's IIoT service 
portal.

Notes

*1 Toshiba survey. 

*2 Water Distribution (WADI): The scaled-down dataset, including anomalies, of 
the actual water treatment plant.

A. P. Mathur and N. O. Tippenhauer, "SWaT: a water treatment testbed for 
research and training on ICS security," Proceedings of 2016 International 
Workshop on Cyber-physical Systems for Smart Water Networks, pp. 31–36, April 
2016.

*3 Anomaly detection machine-learning techniques such as UnSupervised Anomaly 
Detection (2020) and OminAnomaly (2019). Comparison of each of these methods is 
discussed in the following paper.

S. Naito, Y. Taguchi, K. Nakata, Y. Kato, "Anomaly Detection for Multivariate 
Time Series on Large-scale Fluid Handling Plant Using Two-stage Autoencoder."

About Toshiba Corporation

Toshiba leads a global group of companies that combines knowledge and 
capabilities from over 140 years of experience in a wide range of 
businesses—from energy and social infrastructure to electronic devices—with 
world-class capabilities in information processing, digital and AI 
technologies. These distinctive strengths support Toshiba's continued evolution 
toward becoming an Infrastructure Services Company that promotes data 
utilization and digitization, and one of the world's leading 
cyber-physical-systems technology companies. Guided by the Basic Commitment of 
the Toshiba Group, "Committed to People, Committed to the Future," Toshiba 
contributes to society's positive development with services and solutions that 
lead to a better world. The Group and its 120,000 employees worldwide secured 
annual sales surpassing 3.1 trillion yen (US$27.5 billion) in fiscal year 2020. 
Find out more about Toshiba at www.global.toshiba/ww/outline/corporate.html 

SOURCE:  Toshiba Corporation

Image Attachments Links:

   Link: https://iop.asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=409701

   Caption: Fig. 1 Technical outline of Toshiba’s new anomaly detection AI.

   Link: https://iop.asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=409702

   Caption: Fig. 2 Mikawa Plant in Omuta city, Fukuoka prefecture, Japan.

   Link: https://iop.asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=409703

   Caption: Fig. 3 The anomaly detection AI in operation (demo).