Those who work in harsh working environments like mines, solar parks, and construction sites encounter safety hazards that put them at risk of injury every day. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), 150,000 construction site injuries occur each year in the U.S. alone. Given the necessity of these types of jobs, mitigating this issue is a top concern for work site management.
Enter to the scene intelligent video. Video Management Systems combined with safety-related video analytic tools like fall detection and PPE detection have made it easier to identify the work site hazards that often lead to injury in these types of environments. But there’s a problem.
Work sites like mines, solar parks, and construction sites tend to be located in remote, harsh terrain areas void of the traditional IT infrastructure (fiber optics, proper coverage, air-conditioned server room) needed to deploy these types of solutions. And putting the necessary infrastructure in place is a near-impossible task thanks to the inclement nature of the area, let alone the immense cost and manpower associated with it.
Despite this, plenty of less-than-ideal work sites have been able to implement intelligent video solutions like those mentioned above. How?
A lightweight VMS (Nx Witness VMS) combined with AI-based Health & Safety Video Analytics (Ultinous AI Suite) and equipped with a powerful AI platform (NVIDIA Jetson NX appliance) and plenty of IP Cameras. The combined solution makes it possible to quickly and accurately identify and record work site incidents for accident prevention.
The VMS and integrated video analytics solution needed to address the following key questions:
How can an intelligent video solution complete with AI-based video analytics be successfully deployed in a harsh environment with little to no support for the IT infrastructure needed for such a solution?
Nx provided the video management system (Nx Witness VMS), Ultinous provided the video analytics (Fall Detection, PPE Detection, Hazardous Area Monitoring), and NVIDIA provided the hardware (NVIDIA Jetson NX).
How It Works:
Nx Witness VMS provides a lightweight VMS solution that eliminates the need to deploy massive servers.
Nx Witness VMS and IP Cameras capture video of people, PPE equipment, objects, and occurrences throughout the work site.
System operators easily manage and monitor the area using key features like a flexible grid interface, custom layouts, administration and live viewing in a single unified interface, fisheye camera dewarping, forensic zoom windows and advanced PTZ controls.
Ultinous AI Suite – including Fall Detection, PPE Detection, and Hazardous Area Monitoring – identifies safety violations and potential hazards in real-time.
NVIDIA Jetson Nx appliance, able to withstand harsh conditions like heat, dust and water, easily runs Ultinous video analytics.
System operators create a Rule in the Rules engine which then creates Bookmarks and alerts system operators (optimized to identify and alert within 3 seconds) each time a fall is detected by cameras and Ultinous Video Analytics.
System operators create a Rule in the Rules engine which then creates Bookmarks and alerts system operators (optimized to identify and alert within 3 seconds) each time a PPE violation (i.e. worker is not wearing a hard hat) is identified by cameras and Ultinous Video Analytics.
If system operators need to investigate a particular piece of footage, they simply open Nx Witness VMS and search archived video for a particular item of interest. Nx Witness VMS captures and stores metadata allowing operators to search an entire year of archived video in seconds using associated metadata (tags, bookmarks, etc). Objects identified are bookmarked and classified according to their object type (vehicle, person, license plate).
Technologies Used
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