HKPC Inventions Win Eight International Accolades at Geneva

Applied R&D innovations developed by the Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) have won eight awards at the “46th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva” recently held in Switzerland. These included four Gold Medals with Congratulations of Jury (“High Pressure Processing System for Packaged Food”, “Smart Counter-tampering Cargo Wrapping Film”, “Smart Safety Seat Belt” and “Portable Electric Vehicle (EV) Charger Kit (PCK) System”), two Gold Medals (“Tail Lift Anti-Trapping System” and “Smart Street Lamp Monitoring System”), two Silver Medals (“Smart Wedding Ring-fitting System” and “Smart Toilet Seat”). This is the fourth year in a row that HKPC innovations have been recognized at this prestigious event.

Mr Willy Lin, Chairman of HKPC, said, “It is encouraging that HKPC innovations have once again garnered awards at the ‘International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva’. This is indeed a recognition to the capability of Hong Kong R&D talents. With growing local enthusiasm in innovation and technology development in recent years, HKPC will continue to leverage its interdisciplinary technical knowledge to develop more applied R&D solutions to benefit the public and industry at large, and drive forth the development of ‘Smart City’ and ‘Smart Industry’.”

Mr Willy Lin, Chairman of HKPC (3rd from right), Dr Lawrence Cheung, Director (Technology Development) of HKPC (3rd from left) and the winning team share a memorable moment at the “46th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva” in Switzerland.

Eight applied R&D technologies developed by HKPC have all won major awards in the “46th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva”, including four Gold Medals with Congratulations of Jury, two Gold Medals and two Silver Medals.

The winning projects are as follows:

Gold Medal with Congratulations of Jury - High Pressure Processing System for Packaged Food

With around 100,000 types of packaged food in the market, finding a safe and effective method to sterilize and extend their shelf life has always been a topic of concern for food manufacturers. Traditionally, high temperature is applied on the food to kill the bacteria, but this can lead to loss of nutrition, and even changes in taste and food texture.

The HKPC-developed “High Pressure Processing System for Packaged Food” utilizes ultra-high pressure at room temperature for sterilization, thereby preserving the original taste and extending the shelf life of the food, without reliance on low temperature preservation. This can save the cost and energy consumption on cold chain logistics and food storage, and meet the healthy eating trend of consumers.

Gold Medal with Congratulations of Jury - Smart Counter-tampering Cargo Wrapping Film

With increasingly frequent global air cargo traffic, the air freight industry is facing more security threats from the illegal shipments of hazardous goods. To address this, HKPC is developing a “Smart Counter-tampering Cargo Wrapping Film” by adding a self-damaging agent into the existing plastic cargo wrapping film. Any damage on the wrapping film will trigger the chemical reaction of the agent, turning the colour of the film instantly. This will facilitate easier visual detection of potential tampering, thus enhancing the air freight security and efficiency.

Gold Medal with Congratulations of Jury - Smart Safety Seat Belt

Drowsy driving, a common cause of traffic accidents, can cause casualties. To address the problem, HKPC has developed a “Smart Safety Seat Belt” embedded with sensors to monitor the driver’s physiological signals and drowsiness level throughout the journey and transmit them to smart devices such as smart phone or smart watch. If drowsiness is detected, alarms will be issued in the form of sound, voice, flash light or vibration to alert the driver until he or she is awakened to ensure safety.

Gold Medal with Congratulations of Jury - Portable Electric Vehicle (EV) Charger Kit (PCK) System

Traditional wall mount EV charging stations are bulky and costly in set up, hindering the proliferation of EVs. Developed by the Automotive Parts and Accessory Systems R&D Centre of HKPC, the PCK System aims to address such problems. By plugging in the portable EV charger to the corresponding proprietary AC charging socket in carpark, it only takes an hour for an EV to get charged with enough power to support 20km in ranging distance.

This innovative medium EV charging solution greatly reduces the installation costs of EV charging stations, and is applicable to all carparks, in particular those with congested or non-designated parking spaces.

Gold Medal - Tail Lift Anti-Trapping System

Tail lift accidents occur from time to time, with some resulting in casualties. Most of the existing tail lift safety systems only emit warning signals and cannot stop the operation of the tail lift in time to prevent accidents from happening. With its technology knowledge and engineering experience regarding automotive sensors, HKPC has developed the Tail Lift Anti-Trapping System to cater for the unique tail lift operation environment of the local industry, and to proactively prevent any body part of operators from being trapped by the tail lift, thus reducing the chance of injury.

Gold Medal - Smart Street Lamp Monitoring System

There are more than 140,000 street lamps in the Hong Kong road network. Currently, it takes about a week to complete visual inspection of all the street lamps for malfunction detection. HKPC has developed a real-time “Smart Street Lamp Monitoring System” using LoRa (Long Range Low Power Wide Area Network) technology. By providing the maintenance team with immediate notification of a street lamp failure, this helps minimize the down time of malfunctioned street lamps.

Due to the high density environment in Hong Kong, HKPC tailor-makes the LoRa data transmission module to work both as a transmitter and repeater which can change the transmission route of LoRa signal to cover a wider area in a city with a lot of high-rise buildings.

Silver Medal - Smart Wedding Ring-fitting System

Wedding rings symbolize the lifelong commitment of marriage. Naturally, every couple only wants the perfectly made rings. Using 3D scanning and printing technologies, HKPC developed the “Smart Wedding Ring-fitting System”. From measuring the best-fit ring sizes to printing the wedding ring samples, the System can complete the whole process in less than 15 minutes. Brides and grooms-to-be can try out the wedding ring samples thoroughly before proceeding to production of the final products.

Silver Medal - Smart Toilet Seat

The “Smart Toilet Seat” is designed to address the pursuit for a quality and healthy lifestyle. Apart from aroma deodorizer and voice activation functions, the Smart Toilet Seat also serves as a health advisor. Using image recognition to analyze excretal matter, users can learn about their health condition easily via a mobile app.

For media enquiries, please contact Chloe Chau at tel. (852) 2788 6158 or email: chloechau@hkpc.org.

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David Pun
Senior Manager
Corporate Development
Tel: 2788 5045
Fax: 2788 5056
Email: davidpun@hkpc.org
Website: www.hkpc.org

14 April 2018