SenSen Networks Installations Alleviate Choke Points in Sinagpore

SenSen Networks’ installations at multiple locations in Singapore earned a winning slot in the Smart 50 Awards. Learn more about their projects from an interview with them:

For more than 50 locations across three strategic zones, a global vendor search was launched to find automated solutions to overcome potential choke points in Singapore. The winner: Australian AI company SenSen Networks. As a result, SenSen’s computer vision expertise is now deployed in hot zones around Changi Airport, prime tourist attractions and major roadways.

SenSen’s automated monitoring system – fine tuned over more than a decade in some of the most congested cities in the world – now optimizes road safety, security and operational intelligence throughout Singapore. It does this by capturing vehicle movements via CCTV and security cameras, and spotting obstructions in real time. The data is analyzed inside a highly sophisticated analytics platform that pumps results to the Land & Transport Authority (LTA) and other government agencies.

The benefits are clear – the road network is faster to navigate, congestion around Changi Airport is reduced, and popular tourist areas can handle an increased number of visitors. Thanks to its ability to process petabytes of data in real time, SenSen’s system is able to quickly identify:

  • illegal parking in city streets,
  • overstayed visitors in the drop-off section of Changi Airport,
  • pedestrian movements in popular tourist and pedestrian areas, and
  • unfair or illegal behavior preventing an inequitable deployment of city assets for all citizens.

Q: What does the term ‘smart city’ mean to you, and how does your project contribute to a larger smart city vision?

A: At SenSen Networks we treat cities as deeply connected living entities whose activities can be measured, optimized and kept safe through the application of innovative new technologies – most notably through the power of video analytics to know what is happening at any time of day and night.

Improving urban performance while keeping residents safe and assets working optimally lies at the heart of our Smart City practice, fusing hard infrastructure (‘physical capital’) with knowledge communication and social infrastructure (‘intellectual capital’ and ‘social capital’) to create a seamless world of optimally deployed public transport, infrastructure investment and human movement.

Singapore case highlights the fact that adding our intelligent sensing technology and analytical engine to the environment of a city and integrating this with the surrounding eco-system, SenSen helps to create smart systems for optimal safety and efficiency. Our unique value is in providing video-based solutions for a variety of problems upon a single platform capable of collating and processing data from many sensors.  This means that Smart Cities can be built in increments, not all at once, reducing the cost barrier and improving the return on investment.

Q: Why is the implementation of your project transformational in our current society?

A: Founded upon core expertise in signal processing, deep machine learning and AI, SenSen Networks has been working with city leaders worldwide since inception to improve efficiency and productivity. In that time the company has built a significant store of IP related to Object detection and recognition, object tracking and fusing it with other sensory data GPS, Lidar, Radar and more. Until SenSen enters a city, cities are often patrolled by police, parking rangers and officers. Searches are done on foot or motorbike, often leading to angry confrontations with members of the public upset at receiving infringement notices and fines. In inclement or hot weather, manual labor is energy sapping and demoralizing.

In recognition of its success in Singapore and other prominent sites – among the countries embracing SenSen are Denmark, Norway, Germany, Canada, UAE and India – the company was invited to be a pioneer member of the inaugural global Metropolis platform promoting the rapid adoption of AI and deep learning for Smart Cities worldwide. Launched by US tech powerhouse NVIDIA, Metropolis is a one-stop platform where city leaders can download tools, technologies and support to build smarter and faster applications for their own Smart Cities

Q: What advice did you receive along the way that helped you complete your winning project?

A: SenSen would like to thank all the government organizations, city councils and local authorities for their feedback, which has helped SenSen create a platform that made this achievement possible.

In our 10-year history of operating in this sector, we have delivered a number of complex solutions using our video-IoT analytics platform in Australia, Singapore, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Germany, USA, UAE and India. Our approach is fundamentally different to most vendors. We are driven by a strong culture of innovation using ever-advancing technological breakthroughs in smart sensors, cameras and processing platforms with a clear focus of delivering the highest possible accuracy in the most cost-effective way.

A key ingredient in this process is the feedback from the smart city visionary organizations which combined with our ground breaking innovations, allowed SenSen to become an industry in delivering smart city solutions.

Q: What advice would you give a city community or a solution provider looking to implement a municipal-level project?

A: SenSen’s advice would be to ensure that solutions are adopted one project at a time with each one adding project-specific value while building upon our overall Smart City vision. In this way different organizations and diverse stakeholders are locally optimized but also benefit from network-wide productivity enhancements.

Building such a system does not happen overnight. SenSen is able to design smart networks because we have spent almost ten years working with customers in fields such as infrastructure management, safety and security, transport, surveillance and retail analytics. This adds up to tens of thousands of man hours spent shoulder to shoulder with clients who demand results.

We do not advocate replacement of sensors such as radar, GPS and motion detectors.  Instead we propose that consideration should be provided to enhance the effectiveness of these devices by running the data they collect through our analytics platform to add new meaning and improve accuracy. Over time, as expensive systems such as induction loops fail, video-based approach allows incremental replacement by camera-based systems that are cheaper, easier to maintain and replace, and are more data rich.

Q: What does it mean to you to win the Smart 50 Awards?

A: SenSen delivers solutions for the Intelligent Transportation sector including civic compliance, parking management, and speed and toll enforcement, especially when solutions must work under very challenging environments. In our 10-year history of operating in this sector, we have delivered a number of complex solutions using our video-IoT analytics platform in Australia, Singapore, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Germany, USA, UAE and India.

Our approach is fundamentally different to most vendors. We are driven by a strong culture of innovation using ever-advancing technological breakthroughs in smart sensors, cameras and processing platforms with a clear focus of delivering the highest possible accuracy in the most cost-effective way.

This award is a recognition for this approach and further motivation for us to continue to push the boundaries in terms of what is possible.