This digital twin startup providing highly accurate predictive diagnostics for fleet operators, is powered by the Intel Startup Program

The mobility industry is grappling with several challenges arising due to all-time high fuel prices, rising costs of skilled and unskilled labour, and shortage of workforce. The entire ecosystem is also becoming increasingly complex, with regulations becoming tighter and competition getting tougher. The need of the hour for fleet operators is to have the right amount of control on costs, aided by the right technology that will help them improve their bottom line, while simultaneously scaling operations.

Intangles is a digital twin startup that is bringing in much needed real-time insights to fleet owners and managers, into the performance of vehicles, and giving precise and timely suggestions to fleet operators to make informed decisions. Their challenges are addressed with regard to vehicle health, fuel and AdBlue monitoring and even driver behaviour monitoring.

What is a digital twin?

Simply put, a digital twin is a virtual representation of an object or system that spans its lifecycle, is updated from real-time data, and uses simulation, machine learning and reasoning to help decision-making.

Once informed with such data, the virtual model can be used to run simulations, study performance issues and generate possible improvements, all with the goal of generating valuable insights — which can then be applied back to the original physical object.

How Intangles’ solution is different

Intangles’ core differentiator is the derivation of easily discernible, actionable insights from complex telemetry data streams, targeted at fulfilling the KPIs of the everyday fleet manager. This envelops highly accurate performance statistics (fuel consumption, distance, run hours), predictive alerts for failure with highest levels of precision, diagnostics alerts with elaborate metadata (causes, repair strategies) and comprehensive reports on schedules and pilferages.

Fleet managers are now able to preempt critical engine breakdowns resulting in lower downtimes and maintenance costs. Visibility on route and application specific performance aggregates is enabling them to better plan their operations with a focus on higher margins. Fuel pilferage alerts are enabling direct reduction in trip overheads. Automated reports are reducing dependency on manpower.

As of today, their platform integrates more than 40,000 assets across 10 countries. They on-board approximately 500 fleet operators per month and wrangle a staggering two billion sensory data points on a daily basis.

With Intangles’ solutions deployed, there has been reported 75 percent reduction in breakdown events, up to 30 percent improvement in driver behaviour, up to 30 percent increase in asset availability, up to 10 percent reduction in maintenance costs via predictive approach, and an impressive 96 percent predictive AI accuracy driven through precision analytics.

Meet the founders

Intangles is shepherded by its founding team of four which includes Anup Patil, CEO and Founder who manages strategy, finance, HR, company’s vision and alignment of resources, performance management and accountability across the board. Neil Unadkat, CTO and Co-founder is the person defining the vision for research and platform engineers, collaborating with multiple verticals within Intangles ranging from embedded systems, automotive domain research and analytics to technology delivery. Aman Singh, Head of Analytics and Co-founder is an ardent researcher with a unique skill set comprising an exhaustive knowledge of powertrains, after-treatment systems, ADAS and extensive experience in data mining. Last, but not the least, Jayshri Patil, Head Embedded Systems & Co-founder has extensive research experience in building embedded solutions for computer vision systems. Jayshri is the main architect behind the proprietary embedded system built at Intangles.

On-road vehicle break-down alerts

Historic and real-time data helps deliver alerts of possible failures, leading to significant reduction in the on-road break-down of vehicles, thereby increasing operational hours and lowering maintenance and repair costs. Averting an imminent break-down saves unplanned costs towards towing, making alternate arrangements for goods or passengers, and post-failure repairs and replacements which may prove costly.

“With Intangles, fleet operators have the necessary information related to fault codes that may arise in their vehicles, whether minor, major, or critical ones, at their fingertips and you can look at remedies depending on the severity. Along with faults, our proprietary predictive algorithms coupled with machine learning will help fleet operators conduct preventive and proactive maintenance, making sure your vehicles stay healthy,” said Neil.

Addressing fuel theft effectively

Fuel theft has been a major cause of concern among fleet operators and vehicle owners for a long time. There have been quite a few fuel-tracking devices in the past, however, none were effective enough to provide them with intricate details regarding the exact quantity of fuel stolen, with the exact location and time of the pilferage that could support the claim. Intangles’ ML-based fuel and AdBlue tracking algorithms can detect the exact amount and location of fillings/pilferages and in turn help compute accurate cost per km of fuel consumed.

“The first batch of vehicles we evaluated were heavy commercial vehicles with payload capacities upwards of 40 tons. In terms of fuel economy and the impact of fuel on TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), they were what automobile pandits may classify as ‘gas guzzlers’ of the highest order with average fuel economies in the range of 2.5 to 3.5 kpl of diesel,” said Aman.

“An astonishing 40 percent of the test bench could be mapped to issues with mission critical components in the fuel injection, air aspiration, and exhaust after-treatment systems. Maintenance of reported issues led to a staggering 8 percent increase in fuel efficiency across the test bench fleet. This is where the proverbial bulb had started to shine in vivid colors.” he added.

Addressing road accidents due to human errors

Around 90 percent of all road accidents occur due to driving errors. In addition to loss of lives and goods, accidents also significantly, directly or indirectly, impact costs such as repair costs, increase in insurance premium, and possible penalties towards underperformance. A great way to check on the increasing number of accidents is to keep track of the driving behaviour and offer personalised training to each individual driver on a regular basis. Our comprehensive solution tracks more than 20 exceptions in driver behaviour like overspeeding, idling, hard braking, free running, etc which helps generate actionable insights.

“We have a suite of 20 odd algorithms for diverse use cases across predictive diagnostics, driving behaviour profiling and fuel efficiency-pilferage analytics. We’ve designed customised workflows with cascading data models for curating and mining large quantums of telemetry data,” said Jayshri.

“We work with models such as density clustering, trending and outlier definition for a variety of Probability Density Functions, classifiers built around Ordered Regression and Neural Networks. This is in addition to countless proprietary transforms to normalise signals,” she added,

How the Intel Startup Program powered Intangles’ growth journey

“Intel has been a great mentor for Intangles all along, advising us on how the ecosystem is developing and giving us sharp insights on the future of mobility in India. Intel has also been guiding us on the overall chip and silicon market dynamics. The leadership team at Intel acts as great validators/sounding board for us as well. Their vast experience helps validate a lot of our new product and solution ideas and go-to-market strategies,” said Anup, talking about how the program helped power their scale-up journey.

“The Intel Startup Program is the ideal place where companies like ours can network, interact, and work with large players that are also part of this wonderful ecosystem. It works great for us and hence we would recommend it to other aspiring entrepreneurs as well,” he added.

How the Intel Startup Program is enabling startups to scale their game-changing innovations

The Intel Startup Program is Intel India’s flagship program to engage with technology startups who have an IP or innovative solutions that have the potential to create impact on customers and align with Intel's focus areas. The program is at the forefront of engaging with India’s startup ecosystem through high impact collaborations with the industry, academia and government and runs multiple initiatives that are either vertically aligned or focused on emerging technologies.

It engages with startups that have a unique global or local value proposition to solve genuine customer problems, enabling them with domain and business expertise from the industry and mentorship from Intel.

For more details visit: https://www.intel.in/startup-program.