In coke-pushing operations at coking enterprises, large coke-oven vehicles such as pusher cars and coke guide cars shuttle back and forth on high-temperature, dusty tracks. Maintaining a safe distance between onsite personnel and moving vehicles has long been a critical issue in the industry. Traditional anti-collision systems rely on manual observation and fixed mechanical limit mechanisms, which suffer from slow response, high false-alarm rates, and poor adaptability to complex working conditions. As intelligent transformation in the coking industry continues to deepen, multi-source sensing anti-collision systems based on radar detection, visual recognition, and AI analytics are becoming a standard configuration across the industry.
After multiple rounds of model selection and rigorous onsite validation, the customer ultimately chose the APQ E7DS Expandable Fan-Cooled Embedded Industrial PC as the core edge computing platform for its intelligent pusher-car anti-collision testing system.
Customer Challenge
High-performance image processing and AI inference requirements:The anti-collision testing system must process multiple HD video streams in real time and run AI vision algorithms such as operator trajectory recognition and restricted-area intrusion detection. This requires the IPC to deliver strong computing performance and multi-display output capability.
Rich expansion interfaces:The system must simultaneously connect to radar detection modules, multi-angle video surveillance, audible/visual alarms, and forced-braking actuators. Therefore, the IPC must provide sufficient expansion slots together with multiple serial ports and multiple USB interfaces.
Adaptability to harsh industrial environments:Pusher-car operating sites involve high temperatures, dust, and vibration. The IPC must therefore support wide-temperature operation and offer robust vibration and shock resistance.
Multi-device coordination and data upload:The anti-collision testing system must upload real-time monitoring data to the coking plant dispatch center. This requires dual Gigabit Ethernet for traffic segregation, as well as support for 4G/5G wireless expansion.
Long-term stable and reliable operation:Coking production lines operate continuously, so the IPC must feature active thermal design and industrial-grade reliability to ensure uninterrupted 24/7 operation.
APQ Solution
High-performance computing platform for real-time edge inference:The E7DS is powered by Intel® 6th to 9th Gen Core / Pentium / Celeron desktop-class processors with TDP support up to 65 W. It features two DDR4 SO-DIMM memory slots with dual-channel support for up to 64 GB. Integrated Intel UHD Graphics supports triple-display output via VGA, DVI-D, and DP, with up to 4K resolution. The sustained high-performance output of the desktop-class processor is sufficient to support real-time edge inference for anti-collision AI models, ensuring that end-to-end latency—from personnel recognition to brake-command issuance—meets safety requirements.
Rich I/O interfaces for one-box connectivity to multiple sensing devices:The pusher-car anti-collision testing system must connect to a variety of devices, including radar sensors, multiple AI vision cameras, and vehicle operating-status sensors. The E7DS provides six front-panel USB 3.0 ports, allowing simultaneous connection to multiple industrial cameras and AI vision cameras. Two Intel Gigabit LAN ports are provided: one for radar and vision data-acquisition network access, and the other for communication with the upper-level dispatch system, enabling traffic segregation without congestion. Four DB9 serial ports—two switchable among RS232/422/485 and two fixed RS232—can stably connect to LiDAR units, vehicle-status sensors, PLC controllers, and other field devices.
Standard PCIe expansion slots for flexible add-in card integration:Expandability is one of the E7DS’s core highlights. The E7DS offers a standard PCIe expansion architecture that supports a combination of PCIe x16, PCIe x4, and PCI, enabling flexible integration of image-capture cards, AI accelerator cards, motion-control cards, and other specialty boards. In the pusher-car anti-collision testing system, the PCIe x16 slot can be used for a dedicated AI inference accelerator, significantly improving edge-side inference speed for personnel recognition and restricted-area detection; the PCIe x4 slot can be used for multi-channel frame-grabber cards to achieve synchronized acquisition and preprocessing of multiple camera video streams. Expansion cards up to 185 mm in length and 130 W TDP are supported, making the platform suitable for the limited onboard installation space of pusher cars.
MXM modular expansion for on-demand customization:The E7DS integrates a high-speed MXM 3.0 interface and supports APQ MXM expansion cards, enabling flexible expansion for four additional Gigabit LAN ports, six serial ports, 16 GPIO channels, and more. It also supports Mini PCIe and M.2 Key-B expansion for wireless modules such as Wi-Fi and 4G/5G, and includes dual SIM slots. In the pusher-car anti-collision testing system, MXM modules can extend GPIO functions for direct interfacing with braking actuators, while Mini PCIe or M.2 Key-B can be used to add 4G/5G modules for remote backhaul of system status and alarm information.
Multi-drive storage and RAID for data security:The E7DS supports M.2 NVMe/SATA SSDs, along with one hot-swappable 2.5-inch drive bay and one internal 2.5-inch drive bay, for up to three storage drives in total, and supports hardware RAID 0/1. In the pusher-car anti-collision testing system, RAID 1 mirroring ensures redundant backup of critical safety data such as radar ranging data and AI visual-recognition records, effectively preventing data loss caused by a single-drive failure.
Industrial-grade wide-temperature and vibration-resistant design for harsh coke-oven environments:Pusher-car operating environments are characterized by high temperatures, heavy dust, and frequent vibration. The E7DS features a large-area aluminum-alloy heatsink combined with a galvanized steel chassis, together with PWM smart-fan active cooling. Its large aluminum fins and copper heat-pipe thermal design effectively solve heat dissipation issues for high-performance CPUs in enclosed onboard environments. It supports a 9–36 VDC wide-voltage input, adapting well to voltage fluctuations in the pusher car’s onboard power supply system. The operating-temperature range is -20 to 60°C and the storage-temperature range is -40 to 80°C, and the system has passed 3 Grms random vibration and 30 G shock testing, enabling long-term stable operation in harsh coke-oven environments involving smoke, steam, high temperatures, and vibration. The front panel integrates a power button, reset button, and system-status indicators for convenient field maintenance.
Value Achievements:
Real-time acquisition and processing of multi-source sensing data:With a rich interface configuration of 6 × USB 3.0 + 4 × DB9 serial ports + 2 × Gigabit LAN ports, the system can connect radar detectors, multiple AI vision cameras, and vehicle operating-status sensors in one unit, enabling precise 24/7 data acquisition in coke-oven environments filled with smoke, steam, and high temperatures.
Real-time edge inference and rapid braking:The sustained high-performance output of the desktop-class processor, combined with an AI accelerator installed via PCIe x16, enables real-time edge inference for AI models such as personnel trajectory recognition and restricted-area detection, ensuring a millisecond-level closed-loop response from “a person entering the 3-meter danger boundary” to “triggering forced interlock braking.
Modular expansion for diverse application needs:The MXM modular expansion design, together with Mini PCIe and M.2 Key-B wireless expansion, allows a single hardware platform to meet the differentiated configuration requirements of anti-collision systems across different coking plants simply by using different expansion modules—without replacing the whole machine.
Critical safety data is well protected:Three drive bays together with hardware RAID 0/1 provide redundant backup for critical safety data such as radar ranging records and AI visual-recognition logs, effectively preventing data loss caused by single-drive failure and providing complete data support for safety auditing and continuous optimization of the anti-collision system.
Long-term stable operation in harsh environments:With a wide operating-temperature range of -20 to 60°C, a 9–36 V wide-voltage power input, and 3 G vibration plus 30 G shock resistance certification, the system can operate stably 24/7 in the high-temperature, dusty, and vibration-intensive environment of a pusher car, significantly reducing maintenance frequency and operating costs.
