SAN DIEGO, Calif. – April 20, 2010 – EDSA (www.edsa.com), the leading developer of power analytics solutions for the design, testing, and management of complex electrical power systems, today announced the successful completion of the Factory Acceptance Test for a groundbreaking new electrical power analytics, supervision and diagnostic system, scheduled to be deployed in a 40,700 barrel-per-day oil field in the North Sea. When deployed, it will be the first facility to deploy an autonomous power network using EDSA’s Paladin Live software in conjunction with Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) from Numenta Inc.
The project is being led by a multi-national engineering, procurement and installation team, lead by US and British contractors, including Unitech Power Systems, EDSA’s software and engineering services representative in Western Europe. Upon completion, it will be the first commercial implementation of an intelligent, self-learning HTM system that is trained – not programmed – to aid early fault detection in the electrical power infrastructure supporting a large remote oil exploration facility.
The facility is a mini-city located nearly 200 miles from the nearest mainland, powered by a high voltage direct current (HVDC) power cable from the Norwegian mainland with on-board generators available for emergency and essential services. Because of the very high power outage costs, great care is taken to ensure the reliable operation of the platform’s electrical power network.
“The combination of EDSA’s power analytics and Numenta’s HTM technologies is the first of the coming generation of automated, self-learning systems for managing complex, enterprise-wide infrastructure… something so complex and so dynamic, that humans simply could not do it,” said Kevin Meagher, Chief Technology Officer of EDSA. “These technologies together offer unprecedented benefits for every organization with mission-critical power needs. We are extremely pleased with the synergies that have melded EDSA and Numenta into a strong and innovative partnership.
“Our work with EDSA is an exciting first step towards deploying HTM technology in one of the most demanding operational environments imaginable,” said Donna Dubinsky, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Board Chair of Numenta. “We look forward to continuing to work in this partnership to demonstrate the unique capabilities of HTM.”
The combined EDSA-Numenta solution helps to improve power system reliability in two ways:
• EDSA’s Paladin Live serves as the “central nervous system” for the electrical power infrastructure, continually diagnosing the performance of each component of the system to check for telltale signs of potential operational problems or inefficiencies. By continually comparing readings back to the facility’s original CAD model, deviations from ideal performance specification are immediately identified, isolated, evaluated, and reported to facility staff.
• Numenta’s HTM Technology performs the function of “anomaly detection”. It acts as the “brain” of the system, intelligently observing day-to-day operations to establish a baseline of normal functioning infrastructure; learning about the subtleties between “routine” and “non-routine” events; and finally alerting operators when a situation is not normal, enabling them to investigate.
“In the future, the combined Paladin Live and HTM technology will be developed to have the ability to discover the root causes of operational concerns evident in sensory data and to predict forward in time.
About Numenta
Numenta was founded in 2005 by Jeff Hawkins, Dileep George and Donna Dubinsky. Hawkins is the author (with Sandra Blakeslee) of On Intelligence, which describes the theory of the neocortex used as the basis for Numenta’s technology. Numenta introduced its first research release of the Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing (NuPIC) to the developer community in March 2007. In June 2009, the company released version 1.7 of NuPIC along with a Vision Toolkit that allows non-programmers to experiment with creating, training and doing inference on HTM networks with image classification. Numenta continues to work both on advancing the core learning algorithms, as well as focusing in several application areas such as vision and prediction. Numenta headquarters are located in Redwood City, California. The Company’s Website is www.numenta.com.
About EDSA Micro Corporation
EDSA is a privately held developer of software solutions for the design, simulation, deployment, and preventative maintenance of complex electrical power systems. Founded in 1983, the Company’s Paladin® software products are used by thousands of commercial, industrial, governmental, and military customers worldwide, to protect more than $100 billion in customer assets. Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., the Company’s worldwide operations include 30 sales, distribution, and support offices located throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. For more information about EDSA and its products, visit www.edsa.com.
About Unitech Power Systems
Based in Stavanger, Norway, Unitech Power Systems has more than 20 years of experience in a wide range of advanced electrical engineering services. Its engineers have specialized competence within the following service areas: Electrical Safety, Power System Engineering, Operational Support, Studies and Projects, Wind Power and Electrification, and Power Management. For additional information, visit www.unitech.no/
EDSA and Paladin are registered trademarks of EDSA Micro Corporation; Paladin DesignBase, Paladin Live, and Paladin SmartGrid are trademarks of EDSA Micro Corporation. All others are trademarks of their respective holders.
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