DOMINION has completed the roll-out of its BegiCROSSING smart artificial vision system on 18 level crossings run by the rail infrastructure operator Euskal Trenbide Sarea with the aim of ensuring safety at certain critical points on the rail network in the Basque Country.
The roll-out of this solution helps to cement DOMINION's leadership in the development of technology solutions based on artificial intelligence and vision, in this case with the aim of ensuring the safety of people and critical processes in infrastructures.
The solution is based on a network of video cameras installed at level crossings that send images in real time to the BegiCROSSING system, which analyses them to spot any incidents, anomalous situations or alterations to normal operating conditions at the level crossing. Whenever the smart vision system identifies an incident, it activates a procedure that includes sending an alarm to the driver through the railway signalling system and/or a warning to the control centre to manage it and allow steps to be taken to prevent accidents.
"This is a highly mature technology that enables us to run numerous processes through a specific combination of vision and artificial intelligence, with a specific algorithm that can adapt to each of them."
Iñigo Zorriketa
| Head of the Artificial Vision section at DOMINION
Iñigo Zorriketa explains that this technology can be used not only for safety in railway environments but also in many other critical processes, as in the case of another of its products, aimed at fire prevention in production plants. "We turn a simple surveillance camera into a sensor much more powerful than a conventional one, offering visual cover for hundreds or thousands of square metres. Should a fire break out, this smart system interprets the pictures the moment it starts and gives an alarm signal immediately," he explains.
Moreover, the smart artificial vision system can be installed in any setting where it is necessary to observe a process to control or improve it: both from the point of view of critical infrastructures and in making production more efficient and supervising product quality by identifying incidents.
For example, in the case of industry 4.0, this system is able to guarantee the quality of production of precision parts and detect faults the moment they occur, so enhancing the efficiency of any maintenance policy and assuring process quality.
This technology gives Dominion a competitive advantage which enables it to take a step further in the services it provides, for example in the area of industrial maintenance. "The smart artificial vision system is able to automatically supervise both a complex industrial infrastructure and an extensive distribution network, sometimes more reliably than a person, always providing more comprehensive information to take the right decision," he concludes.
