SPONSORED
The Power to Predict
- By Paul Garms
- Jun 01, 2021
Imagine when you know what’s next. You can respond before potential situations occur and anticipate business opportunities that create new revenue streams or reduce operational costs. This capability requires the power to predict, something that Bosch aims to deliver to its customers through AIoT video systems.
Harnessing the power to predict requires making good and efficient use of the rich and versatile data generated by video systems. Video becomes more about intelligent, data-based solutions than collecting high-quality images and storing them for the record. The key to this is combining Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the Internet of Things (IoT) – specifically joining the networking of physical products and the deployment of artificial intelligence. This trend is something that Bosch has embraced since it first emerged.
Our AIoT products add sense and structure to video data. AI capabilities enable the cameras to understand what they’re seeing and add meaning to captured video with metadata. This process is an important first step in converting rich contextual and behavioral video data into actionable insights – helping users understand events at an ever-deeper level and predict them in the future. Predictive solutions help users anticipate unforeseen events and prevent them from happening proactively.
Understanding the applications
AIoT helps strengthen security and safety and enables new uses beyond security. When cameras and AIoT are combined, they become intelligent sensors that can provide information on activity or states of objects in an area. These smart sensors enable data-driven solutions that provide business insights to bring new value to organizations.
There are many applications for AIoT video systems, and the possibilities for tailoring solutions to meet specific customer requirements are endless. Following are a few examples in several markets.
Commercial or government buildings
When an AIoT camera detects an object blocking an emergency exit door, it can trigger the public address system to play an automated message over a nearby loudspeaker with instructions to move the object. Alternatively, this same system setup can help users enforce no-parking zones – triggering a message when a vehicle parks or loiters in a fire lane. While these situations are certainly safety concerns, the solutions also reduce the risk of violations and fines when these events occur.
In many larger office buildings, the elevator lobby is the main artery to move people. AIoT cameras can detect crowds in these areas and then trigger other systems to redirect traffic during peak congestion. Making that process faster can have a major impact on the productivity of a workforce and the perception of the accessibility of a building.
Retail stores
AIoT cameras can count the number of people entering and exiting a store to provide operations managers with customer traffic data. This information can help managers understand peak days and times and ensure sufficient staffing to optimize the quality of customer service.
Infrastructure
On roadways, AIoT cameras can detect a vehicle traveling in the wrong direction and trigger a roadside unit to notify the wrong-way driver as well as other nearby motorists through dynamic message signs, beacons, or by broadcasting safety messages to smart vehicles. These capabilities provide a real-time safety solution and enable drivers to take action earlier. This same type of system can also alert to slow or stopped vehicles, queues at exit ramps, objects in the road – such as lost cargo – and other traffic events.
Video sensors can also classify objects as cars, trucks, bicycles, and pedestrians, and detect speed and trajectory – continuously collecting real-time data. Armed with this valuable information, city traffic planning directors and senior traffic engineers can analyze flow patterns on networks of roadways for implementing new policies that result in safer and more efficient intersections.
In addition, cities or parking lot managers can take advantage of AIoT video systems to determine how long a vehicle remains in a time-limited space, and alert to vehicles exceeding a certain time threshold to boost revenue streams from parking violations.
Transportation
This same concept applies at the airport curbside for passenger drop-off and pick up where vehicle-parking time is restricted. AIoT video systems can detect and alert law enforcement to vehicles parked exceeding this maximum time limit.
They can also gather data at airports, where traffic flow and plane status awareness is critical. Data collected could include information on how long an airplane parks at a terminal, the time it takes to load passengers’ luggage, or how long it takes to refuel a plane. This information helps speed the turnaround time for passengers and aircraft, improving efficiencies at the airport, and reducing costs for airlines.
Making data visible and usable
Capturing the vast amount of raw data and funneling it into a platform that transforms it into intelligence is essential. This transformation is key to enabling both automated and human decisions. As AI technologies continue to grow, applications are quickly evolving, powering new abilities every day.
AIoT software from Bosch supports informed decision-making by consolidating and augmenting data from multiple cameras. Users can establish a decision center using software, giving them a single, clear dashboard for evaluation. Dashboards can help users identify unforeseen, unwanted, or future situations faster and more reliably – enabling a response before potential situations occur.
Considering the essentials
Capturing data and using AIoT cameras to trigger other systems requires high-quality images to ensure reliability and accuracy. Quality images are essential even in situations where objects are moving, or there are poor lighting conditions or other adverse conditions. If image quality is lacking, the accuracy of the data is at risk, as is any video evidence.
The AI technology being used must also be robust enough to differentiate between genuine events and false triggers such as snow, moving trees, rain, hail, and water reflections that can make video data difficult to interpret. It should also be able to retain information on user-defined objects and situations and refer to these new learnings when processing scenes.
Taking AI further with audio analytics
In some cases, video sensors alone may not be enough to provide the needed detection and situational awareness for critical events. Combining audio and video sensors with AI can facilitate a faster response. Audio analytics built in to the camera can recognize and identify the unique audio signatures of sounds like glass breaking, aggressive voices, and gunshots. It can assist operators in detecting, classifying, and locating the direction of the source of an audio event to help security personnel quickly know where and how to respond.
Fueling innovation
As the proliferation of AIoT video systems grows, integrators must anticipate how they will change user preferences. System integrators who understand the full potential and capabilities of AIoT products and software can provide their customers with predictive, sustainable, and trusted solutions that address the challenges users face in their businesses and organizations.
For more information on harnessing the power to predict, visit https://www.boschsecurity.com/us/en/solutions/video-systems/