One of the biggest concerns on a university campus is people's safety, so the investment in security systems is common.

However, news of assaults and attacks unfortunately still occur.

Besides financial losses, robberies can be associated with aggression and leave psychological damage on the victims.

For these reasons, increasing the number of cameras on campus is not enough, it requires more. It is necessary to add Artificial Intelligence (AI), associating intelligent software that monitors the images in real time and issues alerts to the team whenever an abnormal situation occurs.

This solution already exists and was brought by Macnica ATD Europe. Icetana's AI solution is already being used in several countries, such as Canada, where the solution brought many gains to Mount Royal University.

The Mount Royal University campus has over 14,000 students who move around in an area of approximately 280,000 square meters. In this space there are 512 classrooms and 1850 offices.

This large security structure with many cameras still failed to identify suspicious situations and risks to the university community.

The big challenge was to increase the efficiency of the campus security system without increasing the security staff. In other words, it was necessary to invest in technology, and the university campus invested in Icetana's AI solution.

First, Mount Royal University's Security Services recognized that a single operator cannot review hundreds of cameras, so it would be a win-win to install Icetana's AI solution, which shows only abnormal activities, greatly increasing the effectiveness of surveillance.

Through many studies it has become clear that a single operator can basically only look at two cameras, explained Peter Davison, Director of Security Services. "Now with Icetana's AI solution, the camera security team is no longer looking at 300 images at a time, they now focus only on the normal situations that appear."

In addition, Icetana's AI solution uses Ethical AI, in which the software learns and recognizes shapes, sizes and movements.

In this way the AI solution learns what is normal, such as when students are on campus and when they are not: weekday vs. weekend - since these are times that show totally different behaviors.

As shown in Fig. 1, cameras that identify normal behavior are "muted - black screen," but when an anomaly is detected, that image immediately appears on the main system screen.

Another advantage is that the security team can determine the sensitivity of the software to identify abnormal actions. They adjust it to show more or less what is happening at a particular location or time of day.

This is cruciale for security systems on a university campus, which presents a completely different environment during day and night. Usually at night any movement generates a live feed on the main screen.

For example, if a person were to walk around the university campus with a gun, the system would immediately notice the sudden, rushed movement of all the people around the person, because this would not be normal.

So, as the armed individual continues to walk, the cameras begin to show live streaming because other people around would continue to react in an abnormal manner and this would trigger the system, allowing for quick action by the security team.

Also, the system will not show the normal flow of people entering the university gate, but will signal if there are people running, scattering, or standing at this location.

Similarly, the system will display images on the main live screen when it identifies:

• a truck where a car is usually driving
• pedestrians and people carrying or pulling unusual objects in parking lots
• accidents such as people falling and crowding.

The security team reported that on the first day after the installation of Icetana's AI solution, the following were identified: a vehicle selling donuts in the parking lot and some students playing fight on the third floor of the classrooms.

These are some examples of situations that previously went unnoticed by the team that monitors more than 300 on-screen cameras, answers phone calls, and performs administrative services.

However, this does not mean that every unusual action identified generates a move by the security team, but they are now aware of situations in real time.

Mount Royal University has finally become a reference for security systems, using high quality cameras that feed a single system (from Icetana), which is very robust and expandable.

Even the university campus is much visited by other universities and companies in Canada, as it has achieved great improvements without increasing security staff.

Icetana's AI Solution has become the "eyes" that were missing to make the current security system much more efficient.

Contact us to learn how you can increase the efficiency of your security system by adding Icetana's AI solution to your existing system.

marketing.mae@macnica.com