In July 2022, the company announced UbiHub AP6, a triband Wi-Fi 6 Access Point that enables communities to enable public Wi-Fi. The platform integrates PoE, making it easy to support third-party equipment such as cameras and license plate readers. Also, at that time, they unveiled the UbiHub AP/AI, which adds dual 4K cameras, directional microphones, and a neural AI processor to the mix. The last mentioned is meant for street analytics and 15 days of video storage.

Both UbiHub solutions are compatible with more than 360 million streetlights worldwide and can be installed in seconds plugging into the existing streetlight photocell socket.

The idea to integrate multiple functions into one easy-to-install platform is sound, and according to Northeast Group – this approach reduces the total cost of ownership by 42% when compared to conventional multi-vendor solutions.

“Our UbiHub is the ‘Swiss Army Knife’ of intelligent infrastructure for cities and utilities,” Ian Aaron, CEO of Ubicquia, said in a press release. “Whether you need to scale the deployment of cameras and license plate readers across multiple vendors or simply expand broadband in commercial areas and parks, UniHub is the only multi-function product in the market that installs in seconds and delivers data in minutes.”

UniHub platforms enable cities and law enforcement to cost-effectively scale and transform their existing streetlight infrastructure into a network of connected digital assets. Specifically, the solutions can help:

• Enable faster, evidence-based crime detection, investigation, and deterrence;
• Reduce traffic congestion, improve pedestrian safety and increase bicycle lane utilization;
• Expand city broadband deployments in commercial areas and parks.

Like other Ubicquia products, UniHub is managed and monitored with UbiVu, Ubicquia’s cloud visualization and analytics management system. In addition, UbiVu supports APIs that integrate with leading third-party video management systems, evidence clearance platforms, and police real-time crime centers.

The City of West Hollywood in California is among municipalities that have deployed UniHub, and are now collecting all kinds of data for their future planning development needs. Another client is the County of Hawai’i, which is using the solution to enable equitable internet access and close the digital divide throughout Hawai’i Island, and so has the City of Ontario, which deployed 12,500 UbiCells for smart lighting analytics and energy savings.

With more than 360 million street lights globally, these vertical assets are increasingly viewed by cities as critical enablers for new smart city applications, according to Ben Gardner, President of market intelligence firm Northeast Group. “Starting with well proven energy and cost savings derived from intelligent lighting controls, new solutions are now evolving to boost public safety, broadband access and the automation of municipal functions,” he added.

Aside from UniHub, Ubicquia also has other products in its portfolio, including UbiCell, which enables smart streetlight control; UbiMetro, a streetlight small cell that accelerates 4G and 5G network deployments; and UbiSmart AQM+, a sensor that monitors a city’s air quality index, noise levels, and environmental data.

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Derq, an award-winning MIT spin-off, is looking to address burning needs in pedestrian and cyclist safety with a novel, AI-based solution. It has already been demonstrated in Florida during the first half of 2022 — in collaboration with Control Technologies, Danlaw, and CēVē.

At that time, Derq showed its ability to prevent collisions between drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists using a variety of approaches — including connected vehicle messages, flashing pedestrian signs, actuating traffic signals, and smartphone alerts. The solution also reports advanced safety insights, helping agencies better understand and improve road safety performance.

Derq’s real-time perception and connectivity AI platform ingests and aggregates data from various sources, such as traffic cameras, signal controllers, connected vehicles, smartphone apps, and other cloud-based services.

“Over the years, we’ve partnered with various leading ITS technology providers across the US and have deployed thousands of intelligent sensor-based solutions,” said Pete Ganci, VP at Control Technologies, “the Derq AI Platform is the only one on the market that we have seen capable of powering a fully integrated pedestrian and cyclist safety solution on the market, allowing vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists to communicate with each other and the infrastructure, while also delivering real-time adaptive traffic management and reporting advanced safety analytics, such as pedestrian compliance issues and near-miss reporting.”

The Derq solution is able to detect, track, and predict the intent of pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles as they approach crossings in real time through its AI-powered computer vision algorithms. By fusing this detection data with data ingested from traffic signal controllers, connected car messages (C-V2X), and smartphone apps – it can generate real-time alerts and set off decisions to protect pedestrians and cyclists from hazardous conflicts with vehicles.

“Driver, pedestrian, and cyclist safety are paramount to everything we do,” said Karl Jeanbart, COO of Derq. “Our proven third-party-tested solution can be deployed immediately to alert drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists about potential hazards in their environment, avoid collisions, and save lives.”

During the mentioned demonstration in Florida, several use cases were highlighted, including:

• Placing a call within a traffic signal controller to activate the desired pedestrian phase by utilizing the data generated from the fusion of passive pedestrian detection and a smartphone app.
• Activating flashing pedestrian signs (such as RRFBs) at mid-clock crossings for an approaching pedestrian by utilizing the data generated from the fusion of passive pedestrian detection and a smartphone app.
• Alerting approaching vehicles both audibly and visually of pedestrian or cyclist presence based upon a potential conflict prediction made possible by the broadcasting of C-V2X messages such as Basic Safety Messages (BSM) and Personal Safety Messages (PSM) generated by the fusion of passive pedestrian detection and a smartphone app.
• Alerting pedestrians and cyclists using a smartphone app at crossings of approaching vehicles based upon a potential conflict prediction made possible by the fusion of advanced vehicle detection and C-V2X messages (BSMs) broadcasted by the vehicle.

In addition, the platform also generated an array of real-time safety and traffic insights, such as the detection of traffic violations, pedestrian compliance issues, and road-user conflict (near-miss) data — providing up-to-date, granular data to enable the analysis of safety issues.

For the demonstration, Danlaw provided its RouteLink C-V2X Roadside Unit and AutoLink C-V2X Onboard Unit for this demonstration; while CēVē chipped in with iOS and Android apps that connect drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists to transportation infrastructure. Ultra Engineering and Precision Contracting Services (PCS) also supported the technology team during the demonstration.

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To address these challenges, in May 2020 – Zurich, Switzerland-based Hitachi Energy launched Lumada Inspection Insights, its end-to-end portfolio of digital solutions for the inspection, monitoring, and optimization of critical assets. These are some sophisticated solutions, relying on AI and machine learning (ML) to analyze a wide spectrum of image types, assets and risks.

One of them, Hitachi Vegetation Manager, the company describes as “the first of its kind, closed-loop vegetation resource planning solution that leverages artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of an organization’s vegetation job activities and planning efforts.”

The solution, which uses algorithms developed at one of the company’s R&D centers in Japan, takes images of trees and forests from a variety of sources — including photo, video, and imagery from industry-leading Maxar satellites. By combining the images with climate, ecosystem and cut plan data as well as machine learning algorithms, Hitachi Vegetation Manager provides utilities with grid-wide visibility and better insights so that organizations can optimize decision-making.

“With satellites remotely capturing images and AI analyzing them, we can better optimize and plan for addressing areas of concern,” Bryan Friehauf, SVP of enterprise software solutions at Hitachi Energy, told VentureBeat. “This will also reduce the cost and emissions of the management program by minimizing truck and helicopter trips, and ultimately minimize outages and fires caused by vegetation.”

According to John Villali, research director at IDC Energy Insights, inspection, planning and monitoring are “among the most critical tasks utilities undertake to maintain grid reliability and resiliency. To that end, Hitachi Energy’s solution aims to empower utilities to improve decision making, optimize operations and “as a result, achieve their reliability, safety and sustainability goals.”

Overall, the Hitachi Vegetation Manager gives utilities and government agencies a very accurate prognostic on how the vegetation is growing and this is important for anyone who has to manage vegetation around their linear assets. In other words, some cities could use tech like this.

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To tackle this huge problem, Flock Safety developed what it calls a “public safety operating system for cities” to work with private communities and law enforcement to eliminate crime, protect privacy, and mitigate bias.

The company does that by building smart cameras that capture objective evidence and use machine learning to create and deliver unbiased investigative leads to law enforcement. Flock’s proprietary devices (cameras) and cloud-based software have been shown to reduce crime by 70% and help police solve more than 185 crimes every day, approaching 1% of all reported U.S. crime. That includes recovering hundreds of illegal weapons, stopping armed robberies, solving homicides, and rescuing kidnapping victims.

It is also worth adding that all Flock Safety products and services are built with privacy-first policies like automatically deleting footage every 30 days by default and never sharing or selling data to third parties. All footage is encrypted and securely stored in the cloud. The cameras are not used for traffic enforcement or immigration enforcement, and there is no facial recognition technology. Flock Safety technology adheres to state and local laws on data retention and user access.

One of Flock’s offerings include the Transparency Portal, which is used to encourage open communication and oversight between police and citizens around Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology. The first client to deploy it was the Piedmont Police Department in Alameda County, California — which uses it as a hub for the Police Department’s ALPR usage, data retention, and access policies.

Flock Safety technology already helps police lower crime rates for neighborhoods, businesses, and police departments in 40 states and more than 1,200 cities across the US. And that, apparently, is just a start with Flock raising a $150M Series D round of funding in July in an effort to reduce crime in the U.S. by 25% in the next three years.

The company’s investors include Andreessen Horowitz (Series D lead), Meritech, Bedrock, Matrix Partners, and Initialized.

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“We can see areas that the naked eye that’s on ground level would not necessarily be able to see right off hand,” communications manager Mike Emory said. “While the police may be at one area, or beach patrol at one area, the drone can be up in the sky, identify something in another area and help the beach patrol or even water rescue teams get to where they need to be.”

In addition to keeping beach-goers safe, Oak Island is also attempting to use the program to keep people off the renourished dunes. To that end, the drone is able to fly over to anyone who is walking on the dunes and talk to them through a speaker on the front.

Drone pilot Shawn Barry says that’s usually enough to get people to move back onto the outlined paths.

“We utilize the drone to keep an eye on the dunes,” Barry said. “If there happens to be anyone in the areas they’re not supposed to be, outside of the posted rope crossings. We’ll keep the drone and patrol those areas with the drone.”

Barry feels the drone program will continue to bring a number of benefits to Oak Island.

“It’s definitely a money-saver,” Barry adds. “It enhances our preparedness as well as any mitigation that we have for any future type of storms or events that could affect us in our community. So it’s definitely a game changer, and in a positive way.”

Officials say the drone program is one of the first in Brunswick County, but they hope to see other towns follow their lead.

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To that end, there has been a big push to clean surfaces, yet wiping them down by hand is a costly and onerous task. It is only natural that staff disinfecting areas manually will miss some surfaces. Florida-based Fog-Ez has found the solution for this – a fully-automated system that enables organizations to disinfect surfaces on a pre-set schedule.

The system uses a dry fog of chemicals — approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency — to inactivate pathogens.

Permanently installed within a space or facility, Fog-Ez’s solution emits the dry fog through sprinkler nozzles. Users can then pre-program treatments to take place at convenient times and the duration of treatment ensures full coverage — allowing sufficient contact time for pathogen inactivation. The company claims that people can validate the treatment with test kits and analysers, proving efficacy and reduction in viral threat.

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One of the robots, Flir FirstLook, is designed to crawl through tight spaces that are dangerous or otherwise impossible for humans to reach. At the size of a brick, it can even be thrown into areas that are hard to reach, where they will then use their wheels to search the rubble. If the robot lands upside down, it has the capability to right itself.

FirstLook robots weigh approximately 2.2 kg and are built to withstand drops of approximately 5 meters, even when dropped on hard surfaces such as concrete. The robots feature thermal sensors, cameras, and two-way radios in order to relay information back to search and rescue operatives.

A different robot, called PackBot 510, has a servo-arm that can move loads weighing around 40 pounds (18 kg). It weighs 50 pounds (22.6 kg) and can be stored in a car trunk and deployed within two minutes.

PackBot 510 is intended to be used to dispose of bombs, perform surveillance and reconnaissance, and handle chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear agents and other hazardous materials.

Both PackBot and FirstLook are semi-autonomous robots, which means they need an operator present during their search.

Also both have been tested following the devastating collapse of a condo in Miami, Florida on June 24, 2021.

“In a collapse situation like this, the pile is structurally unsound and constantly vulnerable to shifting. It’s much safer to have a robot crawl deeper into a void than to have a person crawling into that void,” Tom Frost, Teledyne Flir’s vice president of unmanned ground systems, told The Washington Post at the time.

Teledyne Flir was formed after aerospace electronics firm Teledyne Technologies acquired Flir, a 42-year-old software company for $8 billion. The merged companies develop technologies predominantly for the military, space exploration, and for the deep sea.

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Under the deal announced in March 2021, Alchera will offer consulting services to develop and deliver products utilizing state-of-the-art fire detection technologies based on machine learning with Artificial Intelligence (AI). The firm’s visual anomaly detection solution can detect the start of a wildfire from a simple video in order to survey areas unreachable by humans.

Specifically, the software called AIIR looks for smoke and fire when and where human operators cannot, and acts as a tireless assistant. Once smoke or fire is detected from the connected camera, it is shown to the monitoring system dashboard. From there, a human operator can confirm the fire and take the necessary steps. If needed, this will also trigger automated alerts by email or SMS as desired — drastically reducing the response time for emergency center operators. This further allows for human verification and relearning for low false positives and a continually advancing system.

Alchera’s AI allows for 1 human operator to effectively monitor 200+ cameras at a time.

In October of 2017, a series of destructive wildfires blazed through Northern California, including the Tubbs fire which burned 36,807 acres from Eastern Napa County to Santa Rosa, in which Sonoma County lost 6,000 structures and 21 lives. Sonoma County opened an RFP to the public primarily in response to this event, as the fire was not detected until it was already too late. In January 2021, Sonoma County officially selected Alchera as the contract winner after reviewing the submitted proposals.

The company has been working to develop camera-based fire detection algorithms or visual anomaly detection technologies since 2018. The first such deployment was with Korea’s largest utility, KEPCO (Korea Electric Power Corp.) to deploy fire detection systems in both indoor and outdoor environments. Since then, AIIR has been processing millions of images — detecting hundreds of early-stage wildfire ignitions from ALERT Wildfire cameras since June of 2019 through various proof of concepts and trials.

“With our cutting-edge AI-based wildfire detection system, we are able to help reduce the damage of forest fires in California, which, as we have seen, suffers greatly from this phenomenon every year,” Young-Kyoo Hwang, CEO of Alchera, said at the time of the deal announcement.

The firm has started with the implementation of real-time early wildfire detection on Sonoma County cameras in March 2021.

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Relying on Parrot’s proven ANAFI drone platform, it comes equipped with a 4K HDR camera with a 21-megapixel Sony sensor, as well as a FLIR radiometric thermal-imaging camera, complete with 160×120 resolution and a temperature range of 14°F to 752°F (-10°C to 400°C). ANAFI Thermal’s gimbal can tilt vertically 90° upward or downward, giving professionals an “unprecedented field of view.” There is also a 3X digital zoom to allow pilots to examine hard-to-access areas without taking unnecessary risks. The drone’s visible and thermal light spectrum cameras are stabilized on three axes, allowing for sharp videos and clear pictures in any flight conditions. ANAFI Thermal is also ultra-compact while its folding design makes it easy to carry around.

The ANAFI Thermal is designed to profoundly revolutionize the way individuals in a wide variety of industries and trades operate, offering professionals a solution that adapts to their required needs. From rescue service providers and experts in civil security to public works professionals, energy providers and environmental preservation organizations, the ANAFI Thermal offers a robust mix of features, performance and software capabilities to meet the growing needs of a wide variety of professionals who can utilize drones to improve their operations and minimize risk.

The Parrot Skycontroller 3 remote control also provides a reliable Wi-Fi connection for over one mile, meaning operators can use the drone while maintaining a safe distance from at-risk or difficult-to-access areas. Images from the visible and invisible light spectrum can be viewed, analyzed and even merged with Parrot’s FreeFlight 6 app.

Additional performance features include:

• A 78-minute cumulative flight time (three batteries lasting 26 minutes each per charge)
• The ability to reach a top speed of 34 mph.
• Capabilities to withstand wind speeds of up to 31 mph, allowing the drone to operate in volatile conditions and environments.
• All-in-one packaging – giving users everything they need to get started right out of the box.

At the time of the announcement, Parrot’s ANAFI Thermal was selling for $1,900. Meaning, the price could be lower these days — yet, you can still get a capable drone that could be used by firefighters, the police force and other city services.

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According to CO6, ReadySight streams video over dedicated first responder and commercial LTE networks. Controlled by a smartphone, it allows for “day and zero light usage,” while also enabling autonomous and semi-autonomous driving and patrolling modes, two-way audio communication, and unlimited range and usage over cellular networks.

The robot has a built-in speaker and microphone, a foldable “tail,” and a time-of-flight distance sensor. Said camera relies on Sony’s sensor with a 120-degree wide-angle lens, a lens shield and a motion sensor paired with a front indicator LED. It also has high-torque motors that are powerful enough to tackle multiple terrain types and obstacles.

ReadySight can stream to viewers on the web, with streaming plans starting at $99 per month and first responder plans starting at $149 per month. Both subscriptions include unlimited streaming via priority networks and a free replacement robot if ReadySight is lost in the line of duty.

CO6 envisions ReadySight being deployed in the course of accident investigation, exploring tight or unknown spaces before someone enters, and acting as a sentry to keep eyes on critical areas like crime scenes. The device is expected to ship in Q3 2021.

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