Indra News - August 2010

The project, with a budget of 23 Million Euros, is within the framework of the CENIT project which seeks to promote cooperation between private and public sectors in R&D+i

Indra, the premier IT company in Spain and a leading IT multinational in Europe, has presented the results of the R&D+i Hesperia project oriented to develop cutting-edge technology of security, surveillance video and control operations of public infrastructures and spaces. The project with a 46, 5% subvention by the CDTI (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology) out of a global budget of € 23M, is within the CENIT programme (National Strategic Consortia in Technical Research) created in 2005 with the objective of promoting cooperation between private and public sectors in R&D+i

The initiative, led and coordinated by Indra during its four years, allows the integrated management of the latest smart surveillance technology regarding access control, biometric identification, crisis management, 3D representation or augmented reality among others. In addition to the different state-of-the-art solutions, Hesperia's main contribution is the integration of all the technologies into a single platform.

This way, Hesperia meets the market needs of an integral solution to enhance the security and control of public infrastructures which are especially sensitive such as electrical substations, water tanks or telecommunications stations or large public spaces for instance airports, train stations or city centres. It provides smart technology which reduces human error, a critical advantage for this kind of places. In order to guarantee the performance of the application, the work has been conducted using real infrastructures.
The consortium of the project is made up by Indra, Gas Natural-Union Fenosa, Tecnobit, SAC Control, Technosafe, Visual Tools and Brainstorm Multimedia, the universities of Castilla-La Mancha, Granada, Extremadura, Las Palmas, the Technical University of Madrid, the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia and the Polytechnic University of Catalunya in cooperation with the Spanish National Research Council and the Ikerlan Technology Research Centre of the Basque country.

The project was led by Indra's Software Labs Innovation Unit at the Development centre in Madrid. Indra Software Labs consists of a network of 20 centres located in Europe, Asia and Latin America and employs over 4,000 professionals specialised in software development.

Smart technology

The integration of all these technologies enables Hesperia to “act” in a human-like fashion. Through cognitive video (“sight”), audio (“hearing”) and a sensor network (“touch”), Hesperia detects whatever goes on in an infrastructure. This contextual information is interpreted by the knowledge system (brain) which generates alarms automatically in the event of danger. The alarms are sent to the crisis management system in charge of proposing the best action plan.

All this is possible thanks to the middleware communications solution (nervous system) through which information flows interconnecting all parts. Events are represented in 3D advanced technologies, geographic information systems (GIS) and augmented reality. 

A future surveillance system

Hesperia has laid the basis for what could be the surveillance system of the future with the integration in a single platform of the latest 3D systems, smart surveillance video systems which allow classification of objects and detect any unusual movement and a geographic information system (GIS) developed by Indra. With GIS any element critical regarding security can be graphically placed, that is, cameras, fire extinguishers, security staff or detected intruders whose movements can be shown in the monitor. 

Thanks to the solution which allows communication among all the integrated systems (middleware), all the information can be submitted to the knowledge system. Afterwards it will generate the alarm in the event of an incident automatically. The same will happen with the information coming from the sensors and the cognitive audio systems which detect, classify and locate sounds of broken glass, shots, clank of metal or sirens.

The platform also integrates advanced access control systems which increase the security levels in the event of an incident by for instance requesting an employee name badge (RFID technology), biometric identification of face or voice. The latest is capable of analysing not only the identity of a person but also emotions, for instance panic, anxiety or anger. 

We should also highlight the crisis management system, which in the event of a fire or intrusion offer the best actions, or the mobility systems in charge of supplying the platform information via PDA's to the security staff. Likewise, the project represents significant progress regarding what is known as “virtual networking”, a critical feature since if a terrorist attack took place, not all sensors could be disabled thanks to the wireless connection, unlike if they were centralised.

Augmented reality for critical security and maintenance

Another achievement of the project is its portable augmented reality system, which incorporates virtual information into the real image through a viewer. It can be used to set virtual access controls. For instance, to open a door; the person equipped with the viewer will be shown a virtual keyboard to type the security code so that no one else can see it. The viewer can also be employed for facial identification as it will show the personal information when looking at the person's face.

The portable augmented reality solution is useful in the event of critical actions or maintenance. In this case, if a mechanism were to be handled, the viewer would show visual and text guidelines related to its maintenance or repair, thus minimising human error.

Four years of accumulated knowledge in the development of Hesperia adds up to Indra’s broad experience in the design and implementation of security and emergency centres for example: SIMGE, of the emergency military unit; Madrid City Council’s CISEM and SIGE of Civil Protection, among others, as well as control and security centres for important events, such as Expo Zaragoza. The company has significant references in the development and implementation of identification solutions such as the Spanish electronic ID card or the Portuguese passport and is a leader in the development and start-up of coastal surveillance systems in Europe with projects in Spain, Portugal, Latvia and Rumania and Hong Kong outside Europe.

Leadership in innovation

Indra is the first European company with major R&D investment in the Information Technologies (Computer Services) sector according to the Industrial R&D Scoreboard report released by the European commission in November last year. The company moved 13 places up since the previous year and has become the second Spanish company with major investment in this sector with a 7% over its revenue figure, well above the average of Spanish companies (0.8%), European companies (2.7%) and USA’s companies (4.5%).

Indra has agreements with more than 145 universities and research centres across the world with the objective of becoming an international reference in cooperation and in university-company technology transfer.

Indra is the premier Information Technology company in Spain and a leading IT multinational in Europe and Latin America. It is ranked as the first European company in its sector according to investment in R&D and is the second Spanish company in absolute value investments in R&D. In 2009 revenues reached € 2,513 M of which a 40% came from the international market. The company employs more than 29,000 professionals and has clients in more than 100 countries.