Transportation

Case Studies

• 

  2024/09/12

  Case Studies

  NEXCOM

  Transforming Hong Kong’s Railway Safety with AI-Powered Transportation Management

    Background Hong Kong's railway system epitomizes efficiency and connectivity in urban transit. It serves as the city's arterial network, efficiently carrying millions of commuters daily. Renowned for its punctuality and reliability, the railway system stands as a model for urban transportation globally. Connecting diverse districts, blending residential, commercial, and cultural landscapes, its importance as an infrastructural backbone is undeniable. With this tremendous responsibility, ensuring the safety of railway infrastructures and operations is of utmost importance.   Challenge All types of transportation infrastructure, including highways, railways and subways, have one thing in common: they face critical challenges in operationalizing data across safety, maintenance efficiency and always-on security. Maximizing safety while minimizing maintenance costs is a massive challenge for any transit authority. In particular, let’s delve into operational safety. Manual inspections can take up to 10 times longer than machine inspections; it is both labour intensive and compromises accuracy. Inclement weather conditions, such as wind, rain and darkness, can further complicate manual inspections. Extreme precipitation events have become more frequent in Hong Kong. The hourly rainfall record was broken several times in the last few decades. In consequence, the inspections often fail to monitor the safety of operating tracks. For instance, vegetation intrusion or railway tracks shift can lead to derailments. Hundreds of incidents occur annually due to undetected infrastructure defects, vegetation and landslides. Unplanned disruptions result in an average of 300 hours of operations lost per year across these sectors. Traditional camera infrastructure and IP cameras often lack depth perception for accurate monitoring. Satellite imagery doesn’t have enough precision and is highly dependent on weather and satellite availability. Aerial monitoring is costly, with airspace regulation issues and the requirement for experienced pilots.   Solutions Advanced computing and AI are the path forward, covering tasks from image processing and optimization to machine and deep learning, as well as machine vision and object recognition for safety applications, including collision avoidance. NEXCOM, an NVIDIA NPN partner and Metropolis partner, in partnership with Kodifly (https://www.kodifly.com/), an NVIDIA Inception partner, a Hong Kong based spatial intelligence company, deployed the Intelligent Railway Infrastructure System (IRIS), assisting Hong Kong Railways in efficient and safe infrastructure management. NEXCOM’s product, ATC 3750-A6CR, a robust edge AI railway computer featuring the NVIDIA® Jetson AGX Orin™ system-on-module, connects high-resolution cameras and LiDAR sensors by PoE LAN ports as the image and Point Cloud Data (PCD) inputs for machine vision.     Additionally, NEXCOM offers a comprehensive software service called NEXCOM Accelerator Linux (NAL), integrating the NVIDIA JetPack™ 5.1.1 software development kit, Ubuntu 20.04, an onboard MCU library, and custom-made peripheral I/O functionality drivers. It provides developers with efficient control of the hardware and NVIDIA® Jetson™ system-on-modules through APIs, sample code, and I/O utility, facilitating a seamless solution to accelerate customers’ APP developments. The stable software architecture of NAL made it easy for software vendors to extract train information and develop programmes, allowing their software to successfully interface with the ATC 3750 and meet the requirements of this project.   IRIS, the infrastructure monitoring system, is powered by SpatialSense, a LiDAR and Camera scanner that can be mounted on any moving vehicle. The SpatialSense and processing device are installed on the train, surveying the railway infrastructure, capturing precise details, and creating a digital twin. The software analyses the railway circuit and helps to identify potential concerns, such as intrusions, obstacles or the growth of trees that can cause disruption of service on the tracks. The exact location of potentially hazardous instances is pinpointed directly on the 3D map in an intuitive web application. Staff from the control centre can view the alert in real time and immediately rectify the risk, such as by removing trees or repairing rails. This solution can also be used by railway operators to schedule maintenance and troubleshoot problems, helping to prevent accidents.   4 Steps of how Intelligent Railway Infrastructure System (IRIS) works     Moreover, this mobile computer facilitates real-time information monitoring by integrating LiDARs, IP cameras or mmWave radar. It provides essential functionalities such as driving and braking control, collision protection, people counting, traffic light detection, railway ballast bed monitoring, railway station monitoring and anonymized monitoring of drivers’ physiological states. These features aim to enhance safety in rolling stock applications.   The railway SKUs for ATC 3750-A6CR, along with the optional power isolation kit VTK PWA series, provide complete power protection. They hold the EN 50155 certification and are equipped with an M12 X-coded connector to prevent wire detachment. In such a complex environment that’s exposed to natural elements, a ruggedized solution is required. Equipped with passive cooling and an optional fan kit for hybrid cooling, the ATC 3750-A6CR can effectively dissipate heat over a wide temperature range in harsh environments. These features enable high-speed data processing, efficient operations and excellent connectivity, facilitating real-time obstacle detection for collision avoidance. NEXCOM plays a crucial role in unfenced environments by detecting and eliminating blind spots, where unexpected obstacles like animals or plants may enter, minimizing accidents, damages, deaths and delays while maintaining transportation volume and revenue.   Benefit and Result   Improved Inspection Efficiency By employing the AI solution, the public transportation network can reduce the impact of uncontrollable factors such as weather and labour shortages, significantly lowering costs and improving inspection efficiency.   Improved Prediction Accuracy Compared to traditional optical sensors, LiDAR can accurately detect the distance, location and shape of objects, collecting data from a wider range by emitting lasers in all directions. In this case, it is crucial to effectively and accurately identify the location of trees and whether surrounding objects will obstruct the train’s path.   Reduced Maintenance Costs According to the reports by the public transportation network and the Federal Railroad Administration, Hong Kong will spend $65 billion on railway asset maintenance and renewal in the next five years. By switching from breakdown maintenance to preventive maintenance, the AI monitoring solution enables substantial savings.   The smart transportation solution, built using NEXCOM’s ATC 3750-A6CR and Intelligent Railway Infrastructure System (IRIS), is a game-changing platform revolutionizing the transportation industry. The platform provides efficient, cost-effective and safe solutions, and has been widely adopted across numerous vertical markets. It contributes to new standards for innovation and technological advancement in the transportation sector.
• 

  2024/09/12

  Case Studies

  NEXCOM

  AI Emerges as a Game-Changer in Disaster Management: From Reactive to Proactive

  Limitations of Traditional Disaster Management Systems Throughout history, humanity has constantly faced the threat of natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, which have the potential to cause extensive destruction, loss of life, and property damage. Traditional disaster management systems rely heavily on pre-defined rules, unvalidated statistical models, and human expertise and interaction, struggling to manage and process vast, diverse data streams and account for complex variables or unforeseen outcomes. There are several examples demonstrating how traditional solutions available up until now have fallen short. For example, while satellite images are able to provide a broad overview of an area, due to the insufficient frame rate of the high-speed camera, insufficient detail in the image resolution, and limited camera angles, they might lack the fine detail needed for certain tasks, such as detecting shallow landslides or assessing damage to individual buildings. Geotechnical approaches using borehole inclinometers are expensive, complex, and time-consuming. It is also impossible to conduct continuous monitoring, which is not in line with the principles of scale.   High-performance computing and IoT technologies are reducing disaster damage AI is changing the way disaster warnings are issued. AI, combined with IoT, edge computing, cameras, and sensors, is bringing about significant innovations in disaster prediction. By utilizing generative AI, deep learning, and machine learning algorithms to train on datasets from environmental sensors, environmental images, and disaster information, AI can learn about known disaster types and phenomena. Through trained models, it can identify potential disaster situations and signs that humans cannot directly find. In the early stages of disaster warning, it can identify the type, location, and time of potential disasters, and take proactive disaster prevention measures and actions to reduce the scope and impact of disasters.   Rugged edge AI computing platforms and IoT frameworks enable real-time AI disaster prediction and warning systems AI can extract features and set labels from historical disaster datasets (including real-time environmental sensor values, high-resolution camera image files, and disaster fact records) to train various disaster models and identify potential disaster situations that are difficult for humans or traditional models to identify through model inference. Edge AI computing platforms can collect data sources from on-site sensors and cameras in real time and use pre-trained models to infer and identify disaster precursors to meet the needs of complex AI visual applications while also shortening warning response times. Combined with IoT frameworks, disaster prediction systems can be flexibly deployed in distributed geographical locations. In addition, disaster prediction SaaS developed with cloud-native environments and containerization technologies makes it easier to deploy AI models, AI inference engines, and microservices to edge AI computing platforms, accelerating the auto-scaling of cloud-ground integrated applications. However, disaster management systems in outdoor environments face several significant challenges. Here are some of the most critical ones: Durability and Environmental Resilience: Outdoor equipment must be rugged enough to withstand harsh conditions, including extreme temperatures, rain, wind, dust, and even impacts from flying debris during disasters like wildfires, floods, or landslides. Power Autonomy and Instability: Reliable power is crucial, but access to outlets can be limited outdoors. Disaster zones might even experience widespread power outages. This necessitates the system to be self-sufficient with a power generator or solar panels, which have limitations on power storage and energy collection, respectively. Furthermore, the voltage fluctuations caused by unpredictable power sources, such as damaged electrical grids, temporary generators, or solar panels with variable output depending on sunlight, also can disrupt the system's operation. Robust Connectivity and Data Transmission: Outdoor environments may experience intermittent or limited network connectivity due to factors like terrain obstructions, weather conditions, or the sheer distance from communication infrastructure. This can lead to disruptions in data transmission and potential data loss, which can negatively impact the accuracy and timeliness of disaster management efforts.   System Architecture   NEXCOM's ATC 3750-IP7-6C is a rugged edge AI computing platform designed for harsh environments. In addition to its high-performance AI computing power, it also integrates wireless communication modules, a variety of wired communication interfaces, external environmental sensors, and high-speed cameras. Its tightly integrated mechanical design, high-airtight waterproof components, three-proof coating protection, vacuum airtightness, and submersion testing helps guarantee stable operation in harsh environments. Powered by the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin system-on-module that delivers up to 275 (INT8) TOPS of AI performance, the ATC 3750-IP7-6C edge AI computing platform comes with the containerized operating system NAL (NEXCOM Acceleration Linux). With the NVIDIA JetPack 6.0 upgrade, it also features new Jetson Platform Services, which add foundational and AI analytics services, generative AI capabilities, and multiple building blocks such as the Video Storage Toolkit (VST) and NVIDIA DeepStream software development kit. This simplify solution development for developers by eliminating the need for repetitive development on NVIDIA Jetson, empowering them to quickly assemble full-featured edge AI systems and manage edge AI applications. Through REST APIs, developers can easily access a variety of microservices, enabling the construction of unified cloud-to-edge vision AI applications. This functionality delivers the seamless replication of cloud-developed microservices and trained AI models to edge devices using IoT gateway and OTA functions. The alternative IoT OS for ATC 3750-IP7-6C is AIC OT-X. Bridging the gap between OT, IT, and IoT, AIC OT-X converges applications and microservices on edge devices. Industrial computers can be effortlessly transformed into software components. This powerful embedded IoT OS, compatible with x86 platforms, functions as an integrated OT and IoT gateway, supporting OPC UA. It empowers intuitive Docker image deployment from cloud to edge and effortlessly extends microservices for OT and AI applications. The API gateway acts as a central hub for monitoring software usage, providing valuable insights into the utilization of various software functions. This information can be used to optimize resource allocation and ensure the system operates at peak performance. VST and DeepStream SDK microservices streamline the management, analysis, and optimization of inference performance for data coming from cameras and sensors. Developers can create sophisticated disaster sign recognition applications utilizing multi-camera tracking and zero-shot detection techniques powered by generative AI from the cloud to the edge. One of the key advantages of the ATC 3750-IP7-6C is its ability to seamlessly integrate with a wide range of environmental sensors. With various I/O ports, including serial and digital I/O, as well as a CAN bus interface, the system can collect data from sensors deployed in the field, providing the necessary fuel for AI models tasked with detecting early warning signs of potential disasters. Through NAL's built-in hardware interfaces, developers can effortlessly access external sensors and peripheral devices using APIs. This intuitive approach simplifies the process of acquiring sensor data and controlling peripheral devices, allowing developers to focus on building innovative applications. The sensors are deployed throughout the disaster zone to collect environmental data like temperature, wind speed, air quality, water levels, or ground movement. It can also be connected to more peripherals such as GNSS, IP cameras, and IEEE 1588 signal receivers. Designed to withstand the harshest conditions, the ATC 3750-IP7-6C is built to operate in demanding outdoor environments; it is certified with the IP67 rating. With a wide operating temperature range (-20°C to 70°C), vibration and shock resistance that meets MIL-STD-810 standards, and a 9-36V DC-IN power input, this rugged-edge AI computing platform can be deployed in remote locations and continue functioning reliably, even in the face of extreme conditions. Environmental sensor data, geospatial imagery, and geographic information can be transmitted to data centers via wired and wireless connections. The ATC 3750-IP7-6C offers a comprehensive suite of communication options, including Gigabit Ethernet (with PoE+ support), Wi-Fi 5/6, cellular (LTE/5G), and GNSS capabilities. This ensures seamless data transmission and situational awareness, enabling effective coordination with other agencies or response teams. People use various AI algorithms to classify images of collected data based on whether they should be reviewed or acted upon — if so, an alert is sent out to a command center. Staff from the control center can view the alert in real time and immediately rectify the risk. The technology company continuously refines AI models, provides probabilistic forecasts, and enables real-time monitoring for early detection. With advanced techniques like deep learning, AI can more effectively model highly complex, non-linear systems like weather patterns or wildfire behavior, potentially leading to more reliable, timely warnings and deeper insights into underlying disaster risks.
• 

  2024/04/04

  Case Studies

  NEXCOM

  NEXCOM Revitalizes European Train and Bus Travel

  Faster and faster we go! For some time now, even with budget airfares being a popular option, many travelers still view trains and buses as the most cost-effective and scenic transportation method between European city centers. However, other passenger needs have increased in tandem with the breakneck development of network technology, meaning that transportation solution providers have had to quickly step up their game and keep up with current trends.   First and foremost, customers want the fastest Wi-Fi connection speeds possible, which is why 5G is currently in such high demand. Transportation providers have consequently felt the pressure to satisfy customer needs with connections that are faster, smoother, and more secure than other competitors’, all in the name of providing the best customer service possible. And as passengers travel to other countries and regions, they may not have local cellular access, so providing Wi-Fi service is ever more crucial. They may even desire media content to keep them occupied on long-distance journeys – which ultimately increases their overall satisfaction.   Figure 1. nROK 7251 as a comprehensive system.   The task: modernize antiquated transportation computers NEXCOM was recently tasked with assisting a transportation system integrator in Europe who was searching for the perfect solution to update their client’s outdated computing systems.   This solution needed to meet several requirements: Suitable platform for both trains and buses 5G communication-enabled (WWAN/Wi-Fi): to take advantage of upcoming 5G network deployments and provide passengers with Wi-Fi access, but also to employ extra concurrent bandwidth with multi WWAN modules and multi SIMs for better resource management High-performance computing (media resources and storage) to access information easily and quickly, so as to provide passengers infotainment such as live TV and online media streaming, as well as to remotely manage content and perform user behavior analysis CCTV connectivity: to ensure safety aboard public transportation Data security: to provide a hardware mechanism for securing operator applications and data, as well as to prevent unauthorized access   NEXCOM’s 7251 is the one The answer was clear: NEXCOM’s nROK/VTC 7251, an onboard high mixed multimedia and surveillance platform equipped for both trains (nROK) and buses (VTC). The 7251 was especially built for communication and media server purposes, with five WWAN-ready expansion ports, and onboard surveillance, with four PoE ports available for video camera use. What’s more, the ruggedized platform’s isolation kit protected the 7251 from potential power surges. NEXCOM additionally included proprietary software for added security and ease of use.   Communication-ready For WWAN access, the end client deployed four expansion ports with LTE/5G modems, each with its own pair of SIM cards. Having multiple WWAN modules supplied extra bandwidth and network redundancy, meaning that the end client could effortlessly switch between networks when one network was down or provided better latency. Passengers were thus able to enjoy stable Wi-Fi access throughout their journeys. If the client decides to upgrade their LTE modems to 5G speeds, passengers will then be able to enjoy even faster connection speeds!   Media server functionality In terms of multimedia entertainment, passengers benefitted tremendously from network connectivity: they were able to view infotainment and watch live television on seatback screens and handheld devices. The operator could even remotely manage content from the cloud and perform back-end big data analysis on customer preferences, allowing them to refresh and push more relevant content. Moreover, two SATA SSDs were also accessible for media storage.   Equipped for video monitoring Just as with all modes of transportation, safety was a primary concern for the end client. As a PoE railway/bus computer, the nROK/VTC 7251 was able to monitor onboard conditions through CCTV. Four independent PoE ports powered the onboard camera system, providing durability and high speeds. Since surveillance cameras record greater data volume, we included the aforementioned SSDs, with additional BIOS option to utilize mPCIe expansion slots as mSATA storage.   Durable design Utilizing the optional wide input voltage of 24 to 110 VDC with isolation also ensured that the computer and cameras would be protected from damage during power surges. The nROK/VTC 7251 was also ruggedized and suitable for suboptimal environments with an extended operating temperature range of -40 to 70°C and certification to both EN50155 and MIL-STD-810G standards.   Bonus: NEXCOM software included To protect the system from malware and preserve hardware and software intellectual property rights, NEXCOM programmed the system’s hard drives to only be accessible through BIOS password and secure boot and inoperable with any other platforms. Configuration was simple with the enclosed utility software for both Linux and Windows operating systems, allowing the client seamless management of the 7251 platform.   But that’s not all! The nROK/VTC 7251 was a first-rate choice for the client, providing speed, connectivity, and safety with its communication, multimedia, and surveillance features – all in a ruggedized platform. But NEXCOM is constantly and consistently responding to client needs by developing new solutions, such as the nROK/VTC 7252, which provides even more storage, PoE ports, video output, and protection.   nROK 7251 Series nROK 7251-WI-7C4IP nROK 7251-7C4 nROK 7251-7A nROK 7252 Series nROK 7252-AC8S nROK 7252-WI2-C8S