Connected safety: coming to a city near you

City Security Blog header

Connected safety: coming to a city near you

6 Minute read

By 2030, there will be 5 billion people living in cities around the world. This surge in urban population will require better infrastructure, mobility and an increased need for safety. 

Governments large and small are looking at technology, such as big data and artificial intelligence, for ideas to meet this coming demand, according to a report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Data-Smart City Solutions. They’re asking questions such as how can governments be most efficient with limited resources? How can they improve safety, and quality of life? 

These questions are often raised when it comes to video. Use of security video differs by country, city and state. In North America, there are law enforcement agencies that have used video for years to help keep residents safe. There are also cities that are relative newcomers, now implementing pilot programs to test the use of body worn cameras by police officers. In many communities, debates are taking place regarding how and when to use of video in the business of governing. 

Panasonic is deeply engaged in developing connected solutions to address community safety in the 21st century – to support the policies developed by lawmakers. We provide security and video surveillance systems designed to integrate with our mobile, communication and evidence management platforms. That’s important because when you’re leveraging disruptive technologies, such as new forms of mobile content, cloud storage and the challenges brought on by the Internet of Things (IoT), there’s a need to integrate these technologies into a unified, simple and secure technology ecosystem to help agencies meet the needs of their communities. 

Here’s a look at promising technology developments in public safety and security that are solving problems today in ways that may impact communities and agencies in the future. 
 

Automatic evidence in Connecticut

Body-worn cameras are becoming integral in the evidence management tool kit for law enforcement agencies across the globe. Those wondering when the technology will have widespread adoption need look no farther than Connecticut, where it is now state law.
As part of a recently passed Act Concerning Excessive Use of Force, the state received federal funding to purchase these cameras for Connecticut State Police. State troopers are receiving body cameras starting this summer, and their use is governed by the new law that stipulates recording will be activated by smart triggers, such as when an officer opens his door.

To help law enforcement agencies like those in Connecticut manage the massive volumes of data created by body and dashboard cams and city surveillance systems, Panasonic has  developed Unified Digital Evidence, a software technology to collect, manage and protect digital evidence. The new software solution offers a platform to gather and store digital evidence from the Arbitrator™ In-Car and Body-Worn camera platforms, as well as other sources, including fixed surveillance and a variety of digital media devices, increasing transparency and the flow of information, enabling a connected safety ecosystem.

Livestream citizen patrol in Newark, NJ

Demand for professional video surveillance cameras has been growing quickly and is forecast to continue, according to IHS Markit. Less than 10 million cameras were shipped globally in 2006, and more than 130 million will be shipped in 2018, according to IHS data. In Newark, NJ, law enforcement leaders are embracing video technology as a public safety tool – to connect the community to crime determent. 

The “Citizen Virtual Patrol” is a digital policing program launched to allow community members to virtually patrol their neighborhoods and to assist police in deterring criminal activity. Residents with a computer or tablet and Wi-Fi can tap into the program’s live-streaming network of 62 Panasonic cameras installed across the city, and are encouraged to call 911 if they see suspicious activity so officers can be dispatched to the camera’s location. “This invaluable technology puts a real-time crime reporting tool in the hands of every concerned community member,” Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka said in April. “It corroborates their story, helps us make an arrest, or possibly prevents something from taking place before it actually happens.”
 

Facial recognition in Tokyo

Some 6,700 miles away, Japan’s Immigration Bureau has chosen a high-tech security gate to streamline departures and arrivals at one of world’s busiest airports. Introduced in 2017 Tokyo International (Haneda) Airport, the Facial Recognition gate uses deep machine learning and advanced software designed to detect fraud and to prevent unauthorized entry – and alert authorities in real time.

The Japanese agency adopted this technology to move people through immigration more efficiently. Developed by Panasonic, which has worked on facial recognition technologies for 30 years, the security solution can identify individuals even if they aren’t looking at the camera head-on, or are wearing a mask or sunglasses.


The system compares photographic data of the traveler's face from the IC chip embedded in the person's passport with a photo taken at the facial recognition gate to verify his or her identity, making it an appealing alternative to fingerprint recognition, which requires people to register biometric data in advance. 

Such technology, combined with robust unified evidence management programs and sophisticated camera systems, promises to revolutionize security at stadiums, in hospitals, on college campuses, and at other high traffic venues where public safety is a priority now – and in the future.
 

Authors
M. Faisal Pandit - SVP and Chief Digital Officer, Panasonic System Solutions Company of North America

The Internet of Vehicles

the-internet-of-vehicles

The Internet of Vehicles

3 minutes

As innovation accelerates, it isn’t hard to imagine a world where cars drive themselves, or even fly. But cars that talk and think? You might be shaking your head, but that’s exactly where mobility is headed.

At ITS World Congress that starts in mid-September in Copenhagen, Panasonic’s Jarrett Wendt will offer ideas on the connected vehicle ecosystem enabling cars to communicate with each other and the road around them. If your travels don’t include Denmark in September, here are a few highlights.

The world is changing at hyper speed

As anyone in the tech world understands, disruption is the new normal. Constant innovation is now the price of entry, and the rate of change is increasing exponentially. Adoption rates have also accelerated dramatically. As inventor and futurist and Ray Kurzweil noted, we won’t experience 100 years of progress in this century – at today’s accelerated pace, it will be more like 20,000 years worth.

In our recent “Moving Forward,” research series, Panasonic Corp. of North America assesses how senior technology decision makers in industries including automotive view the technologies they see driving us forward, and the impact of these technologies on future plans. By 2025, 10 disruptive technologies are expected to generate trillions of dollars of economic impact. Our new research reveals that tech decision makers in automotive, avionics industries and related government agencies say their companies have already adopted five of these technologies on average. And four have risen to the top of their innovation agendas – energy storage, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and sustainable energy. Panasonic is deeply engaged in all of them.

The future of transportation is integrated

There has been a great deal of prototyping and testing of Intelligent Transportation Systems, but working with the Colorado Dept. of Transportation, Panasonic has developed a phased approach that will allow DOTs to effectively deploy these technologies at scale. Not just a system for main highways and thoroughfares, but for all roadways and arteries throughout an entire state or region.

Our role? A technology-agnostic strategic consultant, general contractor and solution integrator.

We’re one year into our real-world deployment along a particularly challenging 90 mile stretch of I-70 in Colorado, connecting Denver to Vail, where Coloradans face steep grades, severe curves, often-extreme weather, visibility and congestion difficulties. This is a 5-year, $72 million V2X program featuring a road-operator managed data platform deployed on active, open roadways.

Data has the power to drive safety

With our Intelligent Transportation solution, we’re talking about empowering DOTs with the ability to analyze everything from speed and heading, to windshield wiper and traction control status – providing valuable context on road conditions.

Suddenly, a roadway operator can receive this data and make up-to-the-minute decisions about deploying snowplows during winter storms – or optimize how traffic flows through the city in real time.

This technology can also communicate instantly about emergency braking and crashes, and enables customized alerts to be sent to cars in specific locations instantaneously.

Imagine driving along the highway in the mountains and a crash occurs 1,000 feet down the road and around a blind turn. V2X will enable our vehicles to warn us or even react on our behalf – to prevent us from becoming a part of the incident even before the compromised vehicle is visible. And emergency services can be deployed more expeditiously, and more cost-effectively, than ever before.

Talking cars can reduce traffic

Connected vehicle technology will save lives through a significant reduction in the number of non-impaired crashes – estimates are as high as 80%. CDOT estimates as much as a 400% increase in roadway efficiency with wide scale deployment of connected vehicle technology – without the expense of widening roadways and adding lanes. The system is also expected to reduce the amount of time people spend in traffic and lessen the environmental impact of idling cars by mitigating congestion.

Read more about how disruptive technology is impacting transportation in The Year of the Smart Highway.

Authors
Tom Gebhardt - Chairman and CEO, Panasonic Corporation of North America

Building a wireless future that is far-reaching and accessible

Future of Bluetooth Mesh Networks

Building a wireless future that is far-reaching and accessible

4 minutes

The most inspiring example of the power of mesh networks, a distributed communication system, where each device acts as a node that can relay data to the others, lies in the island of Puerto Rico. That’s where a couple of volunteers with antennas, wireless mesh devices and solar panels helped to restore communications for relief effort coordinators in Barranquitas, a city battered by Hurricane Maria. “Within three days, volunteers were using both technologies to more effectively coordinate the delivery of food and medicine,” according to an article in Quartz.

Disaster management and public safety is one reason for the strong growth forecast for the global wireless mesh network market, but not the only one, according to a new report by Zion Market Research. Its study finds that the global wireless mesh network market was valued at $3.84 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach around $9.08 billion by 2024. The oil & gas Industry, video streaming and surveillance, smart mobility and smart city applications are among the biggest drivers of growth of mesh networking thanks to its promise of low-cost access to broadband services.

Bluetooth 5.0 was officially deployed in 2016 with a focus on enhancing the range, speed and data capacity for the connections. It also had another promising role: IoT connectivity. Where Bluetooth had previously been thought of as a 1-to-1 connection between devices, this concentration on IoT tech allows for the connection of multiple devices and, ultimately, the cloud.

Recent research on disruptive technology by Panasonic shows that many companies have adopted mobile devices, apps and commerce and the cloud, and three in five have adopted the Internet of Things (IoT). Senior tech decision makers believe these technologies are critical to their future success, according to our research. Clearly developments, such as mesh networking, that yield fruitful deployments of disruptive technology are important to these decision makers.

Wide-ranging applications

Bluetooth mesh network represents a major step towards a more accessible and wide-ranging wireless future. It allows for multiple devices to connect to the same network and all communicate seamlessly and in real time. A standard Bluetooth network is similar to a speaker presenting to an audience. The speaker may address the entire audience or individual members and audience members may address a question to the speaker, but audience members don’t communicate among themselves. In a Bluetooth mesh network audience members may address one another. This topology has two advantages. First, since a single message may travel along many routes to its destination, this dramatically increases the probability that the message arrives. The second advantage is the increased distance a message may travel – like one audience member speaking to another.

While standard Bluetooth recently upgraded its range in the Bluetooth 5.0 update, mesh networking hypothetically allows for infinite range if the proper chain links are in place.

Mesh networks in healthcare

There are pioneering Bluetooth mesh network examples in healthcare. Hospitals are using Bluetooth beacons to monitor and track equipment. But helping nurses locate equipment is just the surface of Bluetooth’s capabilities in the health system. Using this tech, doctors and nurses could monitor patients from anywhere, significantly reducing the need for hospital visits. These visits are both costly and potentially dangerous due to the risk of things like contagious diseases and infection. Not only would a doctor or nurse be able to monitor patients wirelessly, but a patient’s devices at home could do things like monitor temperature through biometric sensors and automatically notify the drug store to deliver medicine if the patient got a fever.

Benefits to manufacturing

There are also clear benefits from the Bluetooth mesh network in the manufacturing sector, especially where multiple machines operate simultaneously on the plant floor. Previously, if two devices situated beyond the range of a Bluetooth device needed to communicate, it would require either a wired connection or gateway that could connect to the cloud. This cloud connection requires Wi-Fi, which uses significantly more energy. Now with the mesh network, every single device in the entire factory can connect to each other via Bluetooth, and even the ones farthest away can communicate if necessary by bouncing the signal through other devices on the way.

Bluetooth mesh networking is just one piece of the wireless future that is to come. Read more in our Future of Wireless Everything series. 

Authors
Jeff Howell - President of Panasonic Industrial Devices Sales Company of America