Dr.Amit Shekhar, Co-Founder and CEO, BytEdge
Machines are an integral part of our everyday lives- vehicles, computers, phones, batteries, turbines, generators and so many more. Each one is made up of a variety of smaller components working together in perfect synchronicity. It is therefore imperative that each component be designed properly so that it works well with other components. Each a little piece of a puzzle that comes together if all parts are right and fit in the right places, allowing us to enjoy its performance with a promise of safety.
From a designing perspective, the challenge has always been the means and ability to design a safe and well-performing component in the least possible time. Particularly, in the mechanical engineering context, the design cycle or process is not just especially time-consuming, but products tend to be either under or over designed. This is primarily due to the time and cost constraints, which make it impractical to submit the component or machine itself to the required number of iterations and simulations before arriving at the ideal design. There is therefore a clear need for optimization of the design process.
‘BytEdge’ presents an intelligent answer to this challenge. Established in India and now growing in Hong Kong, the US and Europe they are an emerging predictive analytics platform with a unique design capability. Built to use powerful technologies like digital twins, artificial intelligence (AI) and more, their platform helps manufacturers to virtually test products’ limitations, weaknesses and performance in advance. This approach saves lots of time and money, allowing for a more optimized design.
“Our platform leverages digital twins, artificial intelligence and machine learning to predict product or component failures. This provides the foundation for our unique virtual simulation environment with design and optimization capability,” Dr. Amit Shekhar, founder and CEO of the company, says.
Presenting a Smarter Way to Design and Optimize Products
BytEdge ( www.bytedge.ai) was established in 2018 with a vision of providing industry with a platform for a cost and time saving, yet an optimized design capability. By adopting and working with emerging technologies like digital twins, AI and internet of things, they have produced a connected virtual design environment. In fact, BytEdge is one of the very few companies in the world providing such a unique and valuable service.
Digital twins are virtual replicas of physical assets, systems or processes that are used to run simulations for optimization, designing and deployments for peak efficiency and to create what-if scenarios. These are used to test potential vulnerabilities of products in a virtual environment, before implementation in the real world. Although digital twins are being used in design, they are seldom used for predictive analyses. BytEdge has taken a bold and innovative step to venture even further: Combining digital twinning with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to create a connected virtual simulation and design environment for a wide variety of industries, from automobile to fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).
“Manufacturers and design engineers can come to our platform, upload their designs, input their data along with BytEdge’s real-time data to test their products in virtual simulations, performed by proprietary AI and ML enabled analytical engines. They can further optimize their products as well. This way, we can significantly reduce the time taken to design and manufacture a product,” Dr. Amit Shekhar says.
SupportingMobility Industry’s Critical Needs
Their service is available to manufacturers coming across diverse industries like automobile, logistics and many more, easily and conveniently through a SaaS platform. It connects with popular design software AutoCAD and accepts information from a variety of sources, thus realizing a unique, comprehensive and valuable virtual design environment – one of the very first in the world.
While the platform in itself is capable of being customized for any industry, BytEdge has thus far covered transportation, automobile, manufacturing, design, packaging and FMCG with the following products:
- DesignEdge : Developed on an open architecture platform and supported by application programming interfaces, CFD and FEA tools, DesignEdge facilitates custom design and simulation. This dramatically saves time and money, from the start of the design until completion.
- PredictEdge : With the help of digital twins and an asset’s key parameters and operational or maintenance history, PredictEdge predicts its vulnerabilities and failures. It thus generates a product’s dynamic maintenance calendar.
- FleetEdge : FleetEdge is designed to improve the performance and reduce the opex of any land transportation fleet. Supported by AI and machine learning, FleetEdge analyses vehicle performance data, engine data, operating conditions and driving behavior to provide predictive and prescriptive analytics for optimization.
- GreenEdge : A product for measuring, monitoring and eventually predicting emissions in real time.
- SafeEdge : Statistics clearly point to the fact that globally, majority of road accidents occur due to human error and driver fatigue or distraction. SafeEdge uses visual data via intelligent cameras and using AI and edge computing technology, detects drivers’ facial expressions and behaviour to identify fatigue, drowsiness and distraction.
A Glimpse into the Company
With a team that combines a sound pool of knowledge and talent, BytEdge has made rapid strides in the development of an advanced platform that has merged digital twin technology with Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and data analytics. All this leading up to a unique connected design capability. From simple data analytics to a connected design, the company offers products all along the value chain, from fleet optimization and opex (operational expenses) reduction, to failure prediction and prescription to design and material optimization.
“We pride ourselves on the BytEdge team’s technical knowledge, industry experience and our ability to combine these with creative problem solving. These are the foundations for some of the unique products that we have been able to build out in a relatively short span of time,” Dr. Amit Shekhar says.
“Our platform and products have been built around our vision of using emerging AI technologies and providing industry with innovative design processes that are both cost and time saving, as it increasingly adopts digitization and moves towards an industrial revolution 4.0.,” Dr. Amit Shekhar says.
Many of BytEdge’s products have been piloted and then adopted by some large global names as well as smaller companies. These products have all received validation of both technology and cost effectiveness.
“We believe that while the world is rapidly moving from the internal combustion engines to electric vehicles and alternate fuels, the principles and mechanics remain the same. The platform and products developed are cutting edge today but also highly adaptable and therefore we are confident to keep up and remain relevant with the rapid technological advances in industry,” Dr. Amit Shekhar opines.
Over the last couple of years, the company has spent a lot of time improving their platform and increasing geographical coverage. “It’s been small steps, but we are growing. Our revenues have been going up as we expanded our footprint globally. Despite the travel restrictions over the last two years, we have been able to open new doors and now have active projects and recurring revenue from Asia, the US and Europe. Our users and customers are from across industry. From logistics and the auto industry, to manufacturing, design and even from the FMCG space. The signs are encouraging and the stage is set for the next stage of our growth,” Dr. Shekhar shares.
Towards International Growth
As the world slowly comes out of the global coronavirus pandemic, BytEdge is ready with a much more robust platform with five products for various verticals. Thanks to their proven proprietary technology and innovative products that save both time and resources, they have a continuous and recurring engagement with their existing customers, and an increasing customer base across the world.
“We believe that connected design services is the area of growth in the future. Having built a unique and innovative connected design platform, this is a huge opportunity for us. For the next year and a half, we want to grow internationally. We are already opening new doors in Europe this year. We are focused on growing in the USA, Europe, India and the APAC region,” Dr. Amit Shekhar concludes.
