I-care Group acquires Amiral Technologies to gain AI system for equipment anomaly detection

I-care Group is bringing in an artificial intelligence system designed to detect equipment anomalies without relying on past failures, following its acquisition of assets from French technology company Amiral Technologies. The Belgian predictive maintenance specialist announced the acquisition on September 17, with the deal including Amiral's DiagFit technology as well as its research and sales teams. DiagFit provides I-care with an additional way to analyse the behaviour of complex equipment.

It can process data from multiple sensors and operating conditions, and identify variations that fall outside normal equipment operating patterns. The technology is particularly relevant in industries where equipment failures can be costly and where historical failure data is limited.

Applications of the DiagFit technology

I-care said the acquisition expands its service capabilities in areas such as defence and nuclear operations. DiagFit does not require large amounts of past failure data to identify anomalies. Instead, it uses historical operational data to determine how complex assets behave under normal conditions. Once this baseline is established, the system can compare live operational data against it. Deviations from expected behaviour can trigger indications that something has changed. This distinction is particularly important for engineers monitoring equipment that fails rarely. Satellites or helicopters, for example, can accumulate large volumes of operational data but fail to generate enough failure events to build traditional failure-based models.

DiagFit was developed by Amiral Technologies, based in Grenoble and originally spun off from CNRS. Its technology has been applied to complex assets including satellites and helicopters. I-care Group's founder and CEO Fabrice Brion said the acquisition enhances the company's ability to handle difficult industrial datasets. He also pointed to the technology's potential in defence and nuclear environments, where applications involve equipment for which early detection and controlled data handling are critical.

Advantages of on-premises deployment

I-care will progressively integrate DiagFit into its enhanced predictive maintenance platform I-see. The move will bring the technology's anomaly detection capabilities into I-care's broader reliability offering. DiagFit also supports on-premises deployment, giving customers an option that does not require sending operational information to cloud-based infrastructure. This capability can become particularly important when organisations need to keep industrial data within their own networks. Defence programmes and nuclear facilities face strict security requirements regarding operational information.

Cloud deployment remains available when customers are able to use it. The on-premises option allows the same predictive maintenance approach to run within a customer's existing infrastructure. This architecture also gives engineers better control over where machine data is processed. It can remove potential obstacles when organisations consider AI-based monitoring of sensitive equipment. The acquisition gives DiagFit access to I-care's international commercial operations. Amiral's research, development and sales staff will join I-care as part of the deal.

Former Amiral Technologies business development manager Dogan Kaban said the combination creates opportunities to bring DiagFit to more industrial customers. He also highlighted an important feature of the system. DiagFit can identify abnormal equipment behaviour without needing examples of prior failures in its training data. This approach gives I-care an additional tool for handling machinery where failure events are uncommon but operational data is plentiful. The company now plans to progressively integrate the technology into I-see.

DiagFit's impact on industrial data processing

The introduction of the DiagFit technology will significantly enhance I-care Group's capabilities in equipment anomaly detection. The technology does not rely on past failure data, making it particularly important for equipment where failure events are rare, especially in high-risk industries such as defence and nuclear energy. With growing demands for safety and data protection, DiagFit's on-premises deployment option provides customers with greater flexibility, enabling monitoring without uploading sensitive data to the cloud. This not only improves data handling security but also opens broader market opportunities for I-care.