Qmic launches new platform for smooth conduct of mega events

For the smooth and successful conduct of mega sports and other events in the country, the Qatar Mobility Innovations Centre (Qmic) has launched a homegrown platform, named “Falcon-I”."With Falcon-I, we can make any space a smart place using real time data about the location," chief executive and executive director Dr Adnan Abu-Dayya told a press conference Monday at the Qmic headquarters in the Qatar Science and Technology Park.Successfully deployed during the FIFA Arab Cup, Falcon-I uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) to deliver automated intelligence to help solve problems across different application domains.The platform uses AI and computer vision to provide continuous monitoring and automated actions and alerts to optimise business operations, enhance customer experience, and deliver new services.It can be used to provide real time information of parking availability and traffic queues, among others, and can alert the operators accordingly.This in turn can be accessed in real time by the end users through the Qmic’s Wain platform.“Falcon-I has been used to deliver two main applications: Smart Intersections and Parking Operations, while other applications are at different stages of development,” Dr Abu-Dayya said.“The scalable video analytics platform can fully utilise our extensive technology expertise and product operational knowledge in IoT, AI, and data management,” he added. “Realising smart spaces in different application domains is a major step towards realising smart and safe living.”“We look forward to continue working with existing and new partners to support all existing projects in Qatar in 2022 and beyond,” Dr Abu-Dayya concluded.Road traffic operators can use Falcon-I to efficiently manage mobility operations at road intersections.Under this, it has different solutions for a number of operational issues, such as Real Time Queue Length Monitoring, Yellow Box Monitoring, and Smart Parking Monitoring.Falcon-I uses AI to detect and quantify traffic pile-ups at and around road intersections, and provides road operators valuable insights into the traffic conditions at intersections to make fast and best decisions to improve traffic flow and reduce congestion.Traffic jams around road intersections due to the occurrence of incidents inside the intersection, or the Yellow Box, can also be addressed through this platform.Falcon-I intelligently and timely detects such incidents and alerts the road traffic operator for taking suitable action.Efficient parking experience, especially during mega events, is another service provided by the platform.The Falcon-I Parking Monitoring System provides real time and accurate information about parking occupancy levels and availability trends across many large outdoor parking lots that accommodate thousands of cars.Based on a real deployment in support of the Arab Cup event, this intelligent parking system provided the organisers with a comprehensive real-time view about parking status, and allowed them to direct flow of vehicles into the proper lot or to open new lots.Dr Hamid Menouar, lead technology manager of Falcon-I, said: “We are witnessing the start of the era of automation, where resources and assets will be managed with the finest optimisation.”“AI will play an important role in realising this, by replacing some of the manual steps in the operation process and eliminating the unnecessary operation and decision mistakes,” he said. “Falcon-I can make any space smart and ready for the automation of the both the monitoring and actions.”“Falcon-I can run on any video stream, making it an ideal cost-effective solution to augment CCTV infrastructures with intelligence,” Dr Menouar continued. “We will continue developing the solution further, to support more application domains, and help our partners optimise their operations.”Falcon-I can use any video feed such as drones, CCTV (closed-circuit television) networks, or others as sources of data or even use its own dedicated network of cameras if needed.The data collected is processed and analysed by the AI-enabled platform to produce specialised smart applications that can be used easily by targeted customers.Many other smart applications under “Falcon-I” will be ready for initial market deployment in the coming few weeks and months, such as pedestrian crossing spaces, which can serve an important role in crowd management for mega events.Moreover, the agility and versatility of this platform, its ability to deploy intelligence at the edge or in the cloud, and its ability to integrate with existing camera data infrastructure will significantly broaden the addressable market of Falcon-I.