Amazon presents Monitron and Panaroma (a new machine learning system with tools) to monitor workers and machinery. In the last hours, AWS (Amazon Web Services) has deployed its new tools and services for customers. Among the most outstanding, there are Monitron and Panorama, two systems that allow monitoring the status of machinery and provide intelligence to surveillance cameras respectively.
- Amazon will invest $2.8B in a new data center
- Amazon Luna opens its streaming service in early access
- Amazon launched One, a new contactless authentication system
The new services have been presented at the annual conference of AWS with the idea of providing new options to the professional sector. Both are designed to gather more information in the industrial sector without having to make an extraordinary investment in changing existing installations. Instead, through sensors and hardware pieces that are attached to existing equipment, it allows taking advantage of the current infrastructure to better monitor what is happening in the workstations.
Monitron is a sensor of just five centimeters that can be attached to machinery. It serves to analyze its vibration, if it reaches temperatures outside a set range it can predict possible failures. The sensors, effectively, are connected to a larger network that keeps everything synchronized and centralized, as well as they stay connected to give information to the customer in real-time.
The AWS Panorama Appliance and AWS Panorama SDK are also really interesting. The first one is the hardware, the second one is the software. These two in combination provide traditional and simple surveillance cameras with intelligence. For example, it can provide some data like the number of people in a place, the space between them (by COVID-19 theme), whether or not they wear a mask or a protective helmet, and many other functions.
By adding these small devices to the surveillance cameras, companies can have a complete surveillance system that monitors specific functions that are requested in real-time. AWS Panorama uses computer vision to analyze the images collected by the cameras and automatically detect safety problems or non-compliance by workers.
The issue here, once again, has to do with privacy and the control that can be applied to the worker. Amazon seems to be aware of this, they are telling that it is understandable to think that this technology can be abused, but “the same technology can be used to keep workers safe.”
One of AWS Panorama’s first customers is Siemens Mobility, which says it will use the technology to monitor traffic in cities. Deloitte, for its part, will use it to analyze human traffic at a U.S. seaport.
Amazon presents Monitron and Panaroma to monitor workers and machinery On the other hand, Amazon says they are already using Monitron sensors in some of their distribution centers. They serve to monitor conveyor belts and how packages are handled.
