Application Highlight: SmartCow T1000 Series AI Camera Brings Vision to the Edge
March 18, 2024
Sponsored Story
Computer vision is often thought of as the key that unlocks true industrial automation, and opens the door to low-presence, or even so-called “dark factories.”
Critical to making the best use of high-end machine vision, however, is the ability for these cameras to use AI to process the incoming images and video, and to make good decisions about how to adapt to and report changing conditions in the industrial setting.
Of course, AI-enabled smart cameras will find uses in many non-industrial arenas, too. In the Smart City, smart cameras will need to support such use cases as vehicle counting, face and object recognition, people counting, automatic license recognition, and all sorts of environmental data collection. Airports, smart stores, intelligent transportation systems, infrastructure monitoring, and many other use cases will be clamoring for the best in class.
For smart parking and other uses that need to recognize car number plates in particular, cameras will have to come loaded with ALPR solutions to make it possible for them to capture images of vehicle license plates and convert these images into alphanumeric characters with optical character recognition. And then, they’ll have to be able to compare the plate numbers with relevant databases for correlation.
In the realm of surveillance and security, cameras are already playing a huge part, operating as eyes in the sky, and at the Edge. They deliver alerts for unusual events, detect motion, interpret behavior patterns, look for anomalous activity, and many other functions.
Application Use Case
One interesting smart city use case for AI-enabled computer vision cameras is found at the intersection of activity tracking and sustainability: sanitation.
The European Green Deal is recognized as the pinnacle of sustainable standards and a global leader in environmental management. The initiative has many goals with respect to mitigating climate change, but one of the major goals is the transition to a circular economy that minimizes waste, conserves resources, and avoids landfill whenever possible. European municipalities could be using AI cameras to revolutionize waste management practices with the introduction of smart waste bins equipped with cameras, sensors, and algorithmic intelligence at the Edge.
In these cities, every piece of waste could be meticulously tracked, sorted, and repurposed with the help of these AI-powered systems. The bins would intelligently detect and sort different types of waste to streamline recycling processes and reduce cross-contamination. Over time, the on-board algorithms will analyze patterns in how citizens generate trash and dispose of it. With that data, these cities can optimize their collection routes and minimize fuel consumption and carbon emissions.
The power of these systems goes beyond collection and sorting. Advanced predictive analytics algorithms will be able to use their generated data sets to forecast future waste generation trends so municipal leaders can plan for the future and more efficiently allocate resources. It’s good for the private sector, too. This kind of advanced resource optimization and waste reduction allows companies in these cities to find new cost savings and even enhance competitiveness.
In a recent announcement, SmartCow, an end-to-end AI engineering company that builds both hardware and software products for AI applications, announced a new AI-enabled camera that will be able to accomplish all these tasks, with the pilot solutions set to be unveiled at NVIDIA GTC.
SmartCow T1000 series AI Camera, powered by NVIDIA Jetson
SmartCow’s new AI camera T1000 series features 4G connectivity, advanced image capturing, and video processing. The pilot solutions of the series, including the SmartCam T1023 based on NVIDIA Jetson Nano and TX2 NX, and the SmartCam T1025 supercharged by NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano, will offer up to 40 TOPS of capabilities, along with expansion slots for 4G communications and storage functions.
This processing power allows the SmartCam T1000 series to run complex AI tasks at the edge like image recognition and processing, data management, and task automation. And with its IP65 enclosure and compact design, it’s capable both indoors and outdoors.
The SmartCow team has built and designed this series to be a better vision solution by equipping a 5MP-wide field-of-view sensor with high-quality image output, built-in IR Illumination so it can operate effectively in low-light conditions, and, crucially, ALPR capabilities for smarter parking, traffic management and law enforcement.
In terms of software, the T1000 includes built-in intuitive code designed to enable users to configure and optimize image sensor performance in real time and reference NVIDIA DeepStream SDK pipelines, and it’s coupled with the FleetTrackr edge management solution.
Key Features of the SmartCam T1000 Series:
- Supports NVIDIA Jetson modules
- All-in-one design in compact form factor
- Expansion slots for 4G and storage functions
- Suitable for AIoT gateways, general AI applications
The SmartCam T1000 series will be available in July 2024.
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