New european project: SEERS
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Galician Technology Centers AIMEN and GRADIANT participate, along with companies from six countries in the European project SEERS (SEERS = Snapshot Spectral Imager for Cost Effective IR Surveillance), which will develop an innovative multispectral vision throughout the infrared range, which can be used for surveillance and rescue, both on the shoreline and in critical infrastructures. The main advantages of this system are mainly based on the price, which can be up to five times lower thanks to the combination of different sensors, but also technological: a single device will sample all the infrared range.
The system will be tested on coastal surveillance and on traffic monitoring in tunnels. In the first case, the objective is to facilitate the control tasks of security in ports, detection, smuggling and trafficking, among others; while in the second, the vision system will measure air quality and provide data on the state of the enviroment, being useful to guide rescue labors in case of an accident.
Infrared vision systems have been used frequently in military enviroments and gradually, these advances have moved to optimize video surveillance and security tasks in the civil sector, whose market is estimated to reach 57.3 billion euros in 2020.
To carry out this project, the consortium will use SEERS based low-cost components, which include different ranges infrared sensors: (NIR), shortwave (SWIR), medium wave (MWIR) and long wave (LWIR). To cover such a broad spectrum, SEERS will develop an optical processing method that allows the combination of those images, and a video analysis system capable of exploiting the multispectral information captured. The final system, which can be installed on static platforms or drones, will maintain visibility even in fog, smoke and gas leaks and spills; and measure the temperature caused by fire or explosion, providing relevant and useful information to coordinate effectively the rescue labor.
Contributions of AIMEN and Gradiant to the project SEERS
AIMEN, as leader of this project, will contribute with knowledge and experience in the field of embedded vision, image processing and real-time processing of spectral images. Its main contribution to the project will be the design of embedded reconstruction and image processing system, and a system of active illumination. In addition, its researchers will be actively involved in the development of a novel sensor module for the infrared range of medium and short wave, based on an approximation to optical multiaperture. This module integrates low-cost sensors to add resolutions and give it multispectral acquisition capability.
GRADIANT offers its extensive experience in video analysis applied to the areas of security and Smart Cities, endorsed by its participation in multiple international projects. The main challenge its engineers have to solve for this project will be the development of software for intelligent video analysis that leverages information from around the infrared spectrum, which will be a unique solution in the video surveillance market worldwide.
Funded by Horizon 2020 european program
Led by AIMEN, the consortium of SEERS project with the participation of GRADIANT and companies from six countries, among them Airbus Defence and Space -France- and Thales -Italy-. The team is completed by NIT (New Infrared Technologies), MikroSens and METU-MEMS (Middle East Technical University) -Turkey-, Quest Photonic Devices BV -Netherlands-, and the University of Glasgow –UK-.
Funded by the (Information & Communication Technologies) Horizon 2020 program, the SEERS project has a budget of 3.7 million euros and lasts three years. SEERS will return to Galicia to over 900,000 euros.
This Project has received funding from European Union R&D Program Horizon 2020 under grant agreement 645114. Diffusion of the results shown here reflects only the author’s opinion, European Commision takes no responsibility about of the use that can be done of this information.
