Hyundai Construction Equipment (HCE), Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) Group's affiliate specialized in construction machinery, announced on May 17 that it has jointly developed South Korea’s first artificial intelligence-based (AI-based) equipment failure diagnosis technology together with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The new technology enables excavators to be equipped with an "AIoT" module, which combines AI technology with Internet of Things (IoT) to accurately point out equipment failures by collecting and analyzing real-time data using machine learning (ML).

Particularly noteworthy is that the technology is capable of reinforcing itself as data accumulates over time, which would enable construction equipment to self-identify failures and recommend appropriate equipment parts for repair at the same time. This can eventually enable engineers to diagnose the fault condition and deal with the failure all on a remote basis.

As construction equipment typically carries extremely heavy loads for long hours while it is difficult to detect abnormalities at an early stage merely with sensors and pre-failure conditions that are not very noticeable, equipment failures often occur at an unpredicted place and time.

To tackle this, HCE started to work with AWS in January last year to develop AI-driven smart construction machinery.

"Application of this AI technology we jointly developed with AWS to construction equipment will enable us to provide state-of-the-art services featuring a minimized length of time required for diagnosis and repair along with a maximized level of operational availability, helping to boost our customer satisfaction," said Yoon Youngcheol, HCE's R&D head.

"AWS, using its strengths in ML and customer experience, will provide continued support for HCE's digital transformation," said Ham Ki-ho, CEO of AWS Korea.

Based on continuous cooperation with AWS going forward, HCE plans to develop and commercialize an equipment control solution based on voice recognition and to further sophisticate AI-based safety solutions using the AIoT module.