Bringing it all together: Radio Alert

 

Most of my readers will be aware that in 2018, Motorola Solutions acquired Avigilon, a well-known manufacturer of advanced security surveillance and access control solutions. Here's the archived press release. Motorola Solutions has since also acquired VaaS International Holdings (which includes Edesix); Watchgaurd Inc.; IndigoVision and Pelco. There is now a very impressive and broad portfolio of fixed and wearable video solutions.

Until recently, there was not much interaction between all of these solutions at a technology level. However, at work, I have recently become involved in driving Motorola Solutions Safety Reimagined programme. One of the solutions we've been working with specifically, is Radio Alert.

Radio Alert is an integration in Avigilon Control Centre; that allows alarms generated by events or rules; to be sent to MOTOTRBO radios as a voice call and/or text message. These could include things like:

• Someone entering a restricted area (e.g. jumping a fence).
• Someone not wearing a face mask.
• People not observing physical distancing (a.k.a. social distancing, though I don't like that term).
• Unusual movement such as a car going down the wrong way of a one-way street.
• A registration plate of a car belonging to a persona non-grata.
• Someone tampering with the camera (e.g. trying to whack it with a broomstick).

All Avigilon cameras have built-in artificial intelligence and can recognize objects; people and other things. In the case where someone enters a restricted area, the AI in the camera together with Avigilon Control Centre (ACC7) detect the event and sends this to the Radio Alert service. Radio Alert is connected to a control station that sends the required information to predefined radios.

The voice message is generated by ACC7 in the desired language. It can also send a text message to the chosen group containing details of what has happened and where. Additionally, this triggers an alarm in ACC Client and the operator can look at the video feed to see what is happening.

The Focus of Attention feature (which I think is great) means that the dispatcher doesn't need to continuously look at the screen. Instead, ACC7 presents a series of coloured hexagons, each representing a camera. Whenever something is detected the hexagon changes colour. So no more endlessly looking at the screen and no more information overload.

If one or more of the radio users, has a ION, they can view the video feed from ACC on their radio using ACC Mobile.

If you don't have Avigilon cameras, no problem, ACC7 is able to process video from almost any 3rd party (ONVIF conformant) camera. There are also encoders available to support analogue cameras. ACC7 is also able to possibly integrate with whatever VMS you are using now.

For more information about Safety Reimagined, visit the Motorola Solutions website. If you're located in EMEA and are interested in deploying Radio Alert (or anything you've read about here for that matter), get in touch with me via this link.