Software flags potential riots or fights

SINGAPORE - The group comprising Airbus Defence and Space and IT firm NCS produced a system which automatically zooms in on a face for analysis without the need for an operator.

This is done by attaching a second camera with face-recognition software to existing CCTV cameras installed by the police or other agencies, said NCS vice-president of communications engineering Wong Soon Nam.

The consortium also created a crowd-counting software that, when used with CCTV cameras, can detect over-crowding or a sudden increase in crowd size that could result in a fight or riot.

Using microphones, the software can detect aggressive behaviour or fights as they happen and alert the police - a useful tool that could have helped avert the violence in Little India last December.

The same system can be used to automatically scan video feeds for a particular vehicle via its plate numbers and perform database checks to fill in missing numbers, among other things, before it confirms a match.

The group also wrote software for national water agency PUB that would trigger alerts when cameras detect localised flooding.

Government agencies in China, Hong Kong and Australia have already expressed interest in the technology created from this test bed project, added Mr Wong.

This article was first published on June 9, 2014.
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