Maltese engineering company SmartCow has built an AI platform with sensor fusion capabilities for monitoring road intersection and other smart city applications.

Ultron is an Nvidia Jetson-based edge AI platform that brings computing power to the edge for applications requiring logic-based decisions for automated processes and machines. It is built for smart city and autonomous infrastructure that can leverage its computing power and low latency for AI vision applications. It can be used in various configurations from smart factories to road intersections and home automation projects.

The sensor fusion platform is a computer-controlled industrial system that continuously monitors the states of input devices and makes decisions based on a set of rules and inputs through a custom programme to control the state of output devices.

“The next generation sensor fusion platform is more preferred in industrial applications due to their reliability, flexibility and robustness,” said Ravi Kiran, CEO of SmartCow. “With Ultron, we want to change the development and deployment of automation and autonomous infrastructure for smart factories, Industry 5.0, traffic management, smart cities, smart buildings and agricultural settings, with a state-of-the-art computing and sensor fusion platform that goes beyond the capabilities of traditional industry-grade devices.”

SmartCow built an all-in-one control software platform for Ultron that combines a wide range of industrial functionalities such as machine vision, sensor fusion, AIoT and robotics, complemented by control software. This control software integrates IO control, computer vision, video analytics and Nvidia DeepStream by providing the necessary vision and sensor fusion capabilities in the form of function libraries, IO blocks and APIs that can be called up from Ultron, all configurable through a browser-based programming tool.

Ultron also works with SmartCow FleetTrackr, which monitors and records run-time data such as machine productivity or operating temperature, automatically starts and stops processes, generates alarms and alerts if a machine malfunctions, and more.

The edge computing platform supports various compute modules such as Nvidia Jeston Xavier NX and Orin NX. Communications options for wireless data transmission include 5G, LTE and wifi.

ML and DL models can be integrated with higher detection and prediction accuracy in machinery and robotics automation processes. LAN and USB support is interoperable with standard industrial and machine-vision cameras for real time AI-enabled inference.

Engineers can programme in modern programming languages such as JavaScript and Python.

“To easily integrate edge AI with flexible industrial automation technology, SmartCow provides the Jetson-based sensor fusion platform, applicable for a wide range of industries,” said Kiran.

Established in 2016, SmartCow is an end-to-end AI engineering company that builds hardware and software for AI applications used by the defence industry, in smart cities and Industry 5.0. Partners include Nvidia and PNY. The company is located in Malta, India, Taiwan, Italy and Singapore and is expanding to France and the USA.