Hanwha Techwin Q&A on Wisenet WAVE, latest tech partnerships and AI R&D

Video surveillance brand Hanwha Techwin has had a busy time recently in terms of product development and launches.

In this Q&A the company’s managing director, Bob (HY) Hwang PhD, attempts to explain the company’s recent stellar growth, outlines the fruits of myriad new technology partnerships and offers his thoughts on what future innovation in the video surveillance sector as a whole might look like.

IFSEC Global: Hi, Bob. How’s 2018 going for Hanwha Techwin thus far?

Bob (HY) Hwang: I am pleased to report this year is looking to be as good for us as 2017, during which we enjoyed a 40% growth in the number of products sold.

IG: What factors underpinned this growth?

BH: The growth was in line with the company’s strategic plan to improve run-rate by building trust in the Wisenet brand and providing the highest possible levels of support to our business partners.

We have also had significant success in winning orders for numerous large projects across Europe. Our ability to compete for these projects is enhanced by offering sophisticated integrated solutions which matches our formidable product range with specialist analytics applications provided by our preferred technology partners.

IG: What technologies and capabilities are these partnerships offering to customers?

BH: We partner with experts in their respective fields, which ensures end users are able to achieve maximum ROI from their video surveillance systems.

The massive processing power of the proprietary chipsets in our Wisenet cameras means we can run multiple edge-based applications

The open platform technology and massive processing power of our proprietary chipsets incorporated into our Wisenet cameras means we are able to run multiple edge-based applications.

Although virtually any application can be uploaded to the cameras, we have carefully chosen specific applications from preferred technology partners and made these available out-of-box to ensure seamless integrations and easy installation.

These include retail analytics, automatic incident detection and intelligent traffic management.

Wisenet people counting and heatmap cameras, which feature applications developed by technology partner Facit Data Systems can be put to work straight of out-of-box.

They offer accurate information about customer in-store behaviour and provide retailers with the opportunity to measure store efficiency between footfall and actual sales by monitoring continuously updated live reports and view comparative hourly and weekly reports on footfall, store hotspots and dwell times, as well as how long customers have to queue.

They also identify the busiest days, times and seasons, helping to manage peaks and troughs of customer flow at checkouts.

We have combined our expertise with analytics specialist Sprinx Technologies, to develop Wisenet Automatic Incident Detection (AID), an easy to deploy and highly accurate city-wide incident detection solution, which is designed to be affordable for budget conscious local authorities.

Traffic AID, which was recently shortlisted for the Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Award, lets operators instantly know when traffic is slowing down and whether there is a lengthening queue. It will also detect broken down or illegally stopped vehicles and if there is a wrong way driver, a pedestrian in danger or there is smoke in a tunnel. It will even spot if some cargo has fallen off a lorry!

We are working in partnership with analytics experts FF Group to offer a comprehensive suite of ANPR solutions ranging from car park access control for business applications, through to large scale city wide based systems.

These enable local authorities and police to keep people safe, as well as detect illegally parked vehicles and other traffic infringements. The Wisenet ANPR cameras are able to offer more than a 95% recognition accuracy whatever the environmental conditions and even when vehicles are moving at speeds of up to 150 km/h.

Peace of mind is offered to end-users, consultants, system designers and integrators by demonstrating our contractual relationships with these hand-picked technology partners are backed by extensive evaluation and testing of their respective server and cloud offerings, as well as the out-of-box on-board camera solutions. By making some of these solutions available out-of-box, we ensure seamless integrations and easy installation.

IG: What innovations do you see emerging in the next few years?

BH: Looking to the future, we believe there will be a continuing trend in the development of solutions which combine video surveillance with specialist applications which capitalise on analytics, deep learning and AI. It is this reason we have established technology partnerships successful in these areas of expertise.

It’s important to anticipate the huge potential of AI technology

It is important to anticipate the huge potential of AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology. We are collaborating on the intelligent video analysis platform which is currently being developed by NVIDIA. This will feature AI GPUs based on deep learning on security devices.

We will be looking to develop AI cameras and storage devices capable of autonomously detecting abnormal movements and situations by utilising the NVIDIA platform, which we will apply to our city surveillance, retail and traffic solutions.

IG: What was the thinking behind development of your new Video Management Software (VMS) solution, Wisenet WAVE?

BH: We have an entry-level, free VMS called SSM. For sophisticated Enterprise level VMS projects, the company integrates with technology partners such as Genetec and Milestone.

Wisenet WAVE has been launched to answer the needs of projects in the middle ground with an emphasis on simplified user experience.

It makes it almost effortless to display up to 64 high definition video streams and an intuitive ‘drag & drop’ tool makes it extremely easy for operators to set up a display of live and recorded images on a single screen or video wall, with customisable layouts and sizes.

Other Wisenet WAVE key features include a virtual PTZ which, with just simple clicks of a mouse, enables operators to zoom in to see close up detail of any suspicious activity, whilst motion detection and video analytics support can be configured to generate alerts when user defined incidents occur. A wide range of smart, keyword, calendar and time-slice search options facilitate rapid retrieval of recorded video.

We want to provide users with the flexibility to choose how and where they wish to manage their video surveillance systems with minimal hardware requirements and so Wisenet WAVE provides users with options which include desktop, cloud, server solution and a mobile App.

Since launching Wisenet WAVE in January 2018, we have announced it is now available conveniently pre-loaded on selected high performance Wisenet servers which are specifically designed for video processing and storage purposes.

It has also been integrated with the Paxton Net2 Access Control system via a free Paxton Net2 Plugin. This provides the ability to visually verify the identity of anyone attempting to gain access to a site or sensitive areas of a building, as well as provide video verification of alarm driven events.

IG: So are you feeling confident about the company’s prospects from here?

BH: The Hanwha Techwin Europe team is enthused about our potential for further growth during 2018.

The launch of Wisenet WAVE, which we believe is a game changer as well as the planned introduction during the year of other new, exciting video surveillance solutions, will give us and our customers a competitive edge. Plus, new technology partnerships to be announced during the coming months will help generate further exciting new business opportunities.

Hanwha Techwin is exhibiting at IFSEC International, 19-21 June 2018, ExCeL London. You can find them on stand D100. Register now.

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