Does your robot need human presence detection with maximum depth range?

ALIA is a long-range, high-accuracy, visual intelligence sensor that provides an unparalleled field of view with depth in a single stream video. With a human detection range of 120m and accurate facial recognition at 40m, ALIA is the perfect solution for outdoor security robots, teleoperations, and smart city use cases.

Watch ALIA detect human presence in this outdoor environment video.

Key Features:

Introduction

The deployment of robots in real world environments is accelerating and the construction industry is trying to participate, especially legged robots. These robots by virtue of their design can transverse complicated terrain and hence are being used alongside human workers for assisting and monitoring related tasks on construction sites.

A construction company contacted DreamVu. They were using Boston Dynamics’ SPOT robot (among other robots) for construction efficiency and quality. Although the robot was outfitted with sensors by Boston Dynamics for obstacle avoidance, the customer’s test results showed that they were not enough to deploy in complex real-world construction environments. With DreamVu’s innovative omnidirectional vision capabilities the customer is now able to deploy these robots confidently at their sites.

The Problem

The ability to safely operate SPOT robots with humans present represented an important business opportunity for the customer. They realised to accomplish this, they would need a solution that could ensure human safety in the presence of the SPOT robot. They wanted the SPOT robot to have complete surround situational awareness along with the ability to detect humans accurately in the complete 360° field of view. Another requirement was to be able to perform this task in a computationally efficient way without putting more load on the robot’s processing unit.

The Solution

DreamVu’s PAL Ethernet vision system with in-built human presence detection software provided the ideal solution for their requirement. The solution not only detects humans accurately but also provides precise distance information for the robot to operate optimally. It ensures 0 false positives in both outdoor and indoor environments. The systems is IP67 rated and tested for a wide temperature range and vibration resistance making it suitable for any construction environment globally. The system is also configured to detect several people in a single frame irrespective of their posture( sitting, standing, walking, crouching). The customer was able to integrate the solution to SPOT swiftly and has already done rigorous testing in complex environments. Pilots are scheduled for the end of 2021.