11.24.2020

[Product Launch] Embuilded Intelligence connects building processes with the use of internet of things (IoT) technologies

The Embuilded Intelligence connects building processes with the use of internet of things (IoT) technologies. 



Embuilded Intelligence was launched in 2020 by Hong Kong RFID ltd, a pioneer and a  leading provider of construction-related IT tools in the region. Embuilded Intelligence’s best selling products have already been used by over 90% of the contractors, evolved in the over 10000 stories of the housing projects. 

EI’s software and hardware help digitalizing site daily activities, connecting fields and factories to site offices, providing actionable information, improving asset management, and maximizing productivity. 

Embuilded Intelligence includes the following; 

  • Digital Works Supervision System (DWSS), a Web UI and App interface for site records digitalization.

  • Asset Management System for Plants and Lifting Gears (AMS, LGMS)

  • Building Component Management System (BCMS)

  • Worker Registration System (WRS)

  • Support various IoT sensors by “Imprezz” portal, provides dashboard and alerts/alarms

  • Support GXBIM for 3D awareness and drone surveying.


For more, please visit www.embuilded.com


8.10.2020

[Product Launch] GXBIM - A Collaborative Working Plaftorm on Web for Geo-tagging Multimedia and BIM Data

Hong Kong RFID, with over 15 years of experience providing IoT (internet of things) for smart construction sites, has now been partnering with a GIS data expert GEOXPERT, to deliver a "Collaborative Working Plaftorm on Web for Geo-tagging Multimedia and BIM", namely GXBIM. 


GXBIM, as a part of Smart Site Supervision System (SSSS), is a visualization module to display geo-tagged data; such as 

  • Drone survey video, 360 cameras, time lapse photo 
  • Photos from smartphones during inspection or CCTV cameras
  • IoT Sensors for people; such as GPS position, people counting, worker smart-tag (helmet beacons), proximity sensors, heat stress/temperature sensing, etc.   
  • IoT Sensors for machinery; such as machine GPS position, vibration and fuel consumption, door/gate opens, lift/crane position, flood sensors, etc. 
  • IoT Sensors for the environment; weather station data, toxic gas detection, groundwater level detection, noise level, seismic vibration, etc. 
  • Data from RFID and building components management system  (CITF pre-approved PA20-046) 

Entitled to up to 75% grant from CITF

This GXBIM is successfully admitted in the pre-approved list by CITF (Construction Innovation and Technology Fund), a fund established by the government to support technologies with proven effectiveness in boosting productivity and uplifting building quality.

(Quote CITF Application number : PA-162)



8.09.2020

[Product Preview] AI Camera for Safety Helmet Detection

[Product Preview] Safety Helmet Detection Using Automatic Video Recognition. 

Hong Kong RFID provides a smart TV box to connect with cameras in construction site entry, to detect safety helmet. Workers who pass through the camera will be alerted with visual LED and buzzer triggered. Sending photo-records to site owner is optional but the records are definitely be saved locally with a time-stamp.    



Product Features:
  • A low cost smart TV box with human body detection algorithm based on deep learning
  • Plug and Play with minimal settings; 
  • provide alarm/alert for workers NOT wearing a helmet
  • Offline operable, supports resumable transmission when network was down. 
  • Low power consumption, Max 8W. 
  • Support H.265/H.264 real time video decoding. 
  • Embedded database and web-service
  • Support a wide range of camera IPTV models that already installed on site. 

For More information:  product catalog downloadable.  

Email to :  sales@hk-rfid.com
Or contact here.

5.18.2020

BLE Beacon as a Contact History Recorder Social Distancing Solution for COVID-19




According to WHO, one of the worst characteristics of COVID-19, is the incubation period (also known as the pre-symptomatic period, is the time between exposure to the virus and symptom onset) is on average 5-days and can be up to 14 days.

This makes every confirmed case difficult to trace the origin of infection. And dramatic measures such as completely locking down the whole premises and test or isolation of people far more than necessary are done.   

Business runners, such as offices and factories are looking for ways to ensure safe social distance and also the solution of contact tracking.  Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) transponder can be of great help.


KEY Features

  • A lightweight battery-powered a beacon that automatically warns staff when they get too close (less than 2m), by light and by buzzer
  • Provide an anonymous ID for the staff or the wearer
  • Record up to 34000 records of the encountered ID (less than 2m), downloadable with gateway or smartphone app.
  • Provide traceability of contact history if a COVID-19 case the confirmed.


PROS:

  • The proximity warning DOES NOT rely on any network or smartphone.
  • Continuous 6-month operation (light ON, buzzer off, non-stop), with an ON/OFF button to extend the battery life.
  • Replaceable CR2477 lithium coin

For more on product specification - BLE Tag Social Distancing Solution HKRAT-BLE-M52, Contact Sales@hk-rfid.com, 

4.03.2020

Non-contact infrared thermal imagers for mass fever screening (Part 3 of 3)

How accurate is Thermal Imaging?

For a thermal imaging instrument with NETD about 50 mK; a typical temperature measurement accuracy: 

±0.3℃ with blackbody    (a rough estimation by 0.05 times 6 to include 99% )
±1℃ without blackbody 

Absolute Accuracy is expensive to acquire and maintain

A blackbody radiator is basically a scientistic instrument that requires careful installation and calibration. The power cables and mounting racks have put too many restrictions on the scene and limited the applications. 

In a black-body installed system, the result of getting a false absolute accuracy is a catastrophe

With big data, deep learning and human sciences, the system can learn over time to become smarter and even more accurate in setting the new threshold, reducing False Negative primary and False Positives. 

It is not about accurate temperature reading, it is about how to screen out the fever population among the crowds.














Independent on the environmental change, an A.I. algorithm can always pick out the outlier and the febrile population without absolute temperature data, even though there will be a portion of false-positive (especially for female in ovulation period, there will be a ~avg 0.5-degree Celcius). 

Visitors who raised the alarm will be directed to another counter or quarantine section for further inspections. 






How large traffic can thermal imaging cope with?  

An affordable thermal imaging system can easily achieve over 250 people/mins still or moving, even though for a better flow management consideration, it is controlled to about 120 people per minute in real practice.


Who to contact?

For Chinese's material, installation in China : https://www.purpleriver.cn/
For HK and overseas : https://www.hk-rfid.com/contact-us-c5pg



3.26.2020

Mask saves life. Disposable ordinary-use face mask order available









Please go to follow link to order protective mask.

Surgical Mask, disposable 3-ply, adult, 50pcs/box, 75 box/carton

  • Brand: Defencom
  • Country of origin: China
  • Produced by automated production line under hygiene control
  • T/CTCA 7-2019, Ordinary protective mask
  • BS EN 149:2001+A1:2009, Respiratory protective devices: filtering half masks to protect against particles.
  • Bacterial filtering efficiency: more than 95%
  • Particle filtering efficiency: more than 80%
  • CE, CMA, CCT test reports
  • Ship from Warehouse: Hong Kong

Order Link:
https://bit.ly/2UAZT0i


3.25.2020

Non-contact infrared thermal imagers for mass fever screening (Part 2 of 3)

How to tell whether the infrared thermal imager system is a good one?

Thermal imager system is comprised of following components:
  • Thermal imager (Infrared), usually the one with a smaller lens.
  • Visual camera (RGB), usually the one with a larger lens.  
  • An image processing unit, similar to a DVR/NVR in CCTV system 
  • Black body radiator (or black body radiation source) is a box-size powered device which provides a constant K number for thermal imager to compare and provide a close to accurate absolute reading
  • A display and alert system is same as what a security system should have.



Technology is evolving fast, components manufacturers are competing with each other by keeping upgrading their resolution, processing speed and shrinking the size. Each component has its own core technologies. 

Thermal Imager 
For commercial applications, uncooled thermal imager is commonly used, graded by a number called NETD (sensitivity, the lower the better) and the resolution pixel number; e.g. 160 x 120 or 320 x 240 pixels, the higher number gives higher cost. 

NETD (Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference), in mK unit (1000th K), is the number correlates to the distribution of background noise (standard derivation); the smaller number means smaller  +/- tolerance of measured temperature. 

The K measurement from thermal imager refers to the K compares with the background environment which is also changing. That is why they need a known temperature as a reference in order to provide an absolute temperature reading. This reference can be provided by a Black body radiator. 

This black body radiator source provides a very simple function, a steady K usually set at 37.5C in real practice, yet comes with a very expensive price which is almost the same as the thermal camera. 

Image processing unit
Image process unit (IPU) is just a small computer with a combo of hardware and software to processes the digital signals from thermal and RGB cameras, recognizes the human parts, performs thousands of IR data statistics on each pixel per second, encode/decode, and correlate both images together. 

The best option is to have this program can be running on an embedded system placed inside the camera body with conventional digital video outputs directly to display, but there are lower-cost systems that run on a rugged PC outside. The former is more reliable, plug and play and independent on the PC environment.

The cost of a thermal image system is way more expensive than an IP CCTV camera system is because of this IPU. It requires super-fast processing power and a mathematical model to process these two digital signals. The complexity is far beyond the typical encoding/decoding function of what typical video chipsets provide. 

To deal with this vast amount of temperature and pixel data and patterns, each manufacturer of this system has its own IPs as the core technology. And here comes the novel use of machine learning. 

CPU, GPU, and now NPU (Neural Processing Unit)
Since the outbreak of SARS in 2003, manufacturers have been developing a proprietary machine-learning algorithm or deep learning by NPU or infrastructure developed by Intel, Huawei, etc. Having the intelligence developed in the camera, so-called edge computing, can save a lot of cost by using entry-level PC. It does not rely on a powerful external PC with expensive high-end CPU/GPU to provide an acceptable response time. This is a very important concern especially for multiple cameras with high-res dual-lens (IR and RGB) cameras.

(to-be-continued)




Non-contact infrared thermal imagers for mass fever screening (Part 1 of 3)




Since the outbreak of Coronavirus, people have been advised to refrain from work or school, and minimize social contact, wear masks and be vigilant to hand hygiene. Other than those health workers and medical professionals, there is a lot of people taking risks going to their workplace to keep this city running.

Early detection of fever people (febrile people) and segregation is a must to prevent the spread of infectious diseases (COVID-19 or influenza) in workplaces or schools.

The best method will be a test kit per person, to perform an accurate screening, daily before going to work. However, it wouldn't be possible in any future.

According to the news reports and CDC reports, coronavirus cases come with high fever and dry cough, though not all. Elevated body temperature is one of the possible warnings of coronavirus.

How to enforce a body temperature check in your premise?

How to enforce a body temperature check for every visitor before they are entering public transports, buildings, factories, and schools?

There are different methods to check the temperature; they also come with different "normal body temperature".

  1. Mercury thermometer
  2. Infrared ear probe thermometer 
  3. Infrared forehead thermometer  
  4. Infrared thermal imaging 



Guideline of thermometers
https://www.mdd.gov.hk/english/emp/emp_gp/files/thermometer_eng.pdf

What temperature you are measuring?

Fevering people have a higher core (body) temperature which simply refers to the blood temperature in brain and heart. While the mercury thermometer (oral method) remains the most accurate method and best reference to body core temperature of all, it is impossible to use this as a screening measure.

Infrared ear probe thermometer is simply not an effective way due to the close-contact of operators, the use of consumable, and the lack of accuracy due to many reasons.

Skin temperature can be measured at a distance by using infrared sensors in both handheld and camera settings. Infrared forehead thermometer measures forehead skin temperature may provide a slightly better accuracy reading if it is performed by a well-trained staff and regular black-body calibration.

Still, it is still far from practical to have students/workers lining up in rush hours for a forehead scanning; exposing the staff to have close contact is also a problem.

The final solution goes to Infrared Thermal Imaging

Infrared thermal imaging is widely adapted since the SARS outbreak in 2003, it measures multiple points of skin temperatures, at a distance up to 5-10m. The sensitivity has been greatly improved by both using better sensors and better algorithms or models since the data captured is huge.

By passing through a thermal camera, without stop by any counter or even slow down, hundreds of data points samples are taken on visitor's forehead, face, hands, legs, and any exposed skin. It is unnoticeable by visitors.


Infrared Thermal Imaging is well-proven and reliable

An uncooled infrared thermal imager can easily take over 50 readings/sec over 384 x 288 pixels, which is a 5.5M data/sec.

More data points mean machine intelligence can work out all the statistics throughout the whole human body to provide the best estimate to the true core body temperature.

The A.I. training model can be trained by the numerous sample on both body readings and surroundings at every minute to offset any change in environments.

Surveillance camera companies are now providing a wide range of infrared thermal imaging solutions to the market.

This is why Infrared Thermal Imaging counters are commonly seen in airport arrival halls during the outbreak of the diseases.




(IMPORTANT NOTE: You can only ever measure the temperatures of the surfaces with a thermal imager; you cannot look into something or through something.)

(To-be-continued)