Kerala Police goes hi-tech with new gizmos

By Vishal Narayan

New Delhi, Nov 16 (IANS) With a bevy of new gizmos it is in the process of employing, the Kerala Police seems to be one of the few enforcement agency at the forward end of the tech-revolution.

Seven such innovations are on display at the 37th India International Trade Fair (IITF) -- inaugurated on Tuesday -- with each one of them designed to either helping the police in curbing crimes or enabling perform positive acts such as educating children on traffic rules and the like.

"You know, the Kerala Police is one the best in the country and technologically also we are advancing very fast. For this we have developed lot of safety innovations. These innovations are first implemented through start-ups," P.C. Rajashekharan, the PRO of the Kerala Police chief, told IANS.

Cyber Monkey is one such innovative Augmented Reality (AR) programme for mapping a geographical area via a drone and then, with the help of CCTV cameras, executing several tasks -- from reining in traffic violaters to aiding the security forces during a hostage-like situation.

"Cyber Monkey is a drone-based security system. In it, first the area is mapped using a 3-d drone. If we have to calculate the height of a building, we can do using the software without ever going to the building and also calculate the distance from one place to another.

"This can be very effective in crisis management and VIP movement... We have put a lot of CCTV cameras but these cameras are 2-d. Once these cameras are integrated into this system, a 3-d vision can be developed using the camera footage. This is the main advantage of this software. This is an exmaple of AR," said Rajashekharan.

A pilot run was performed by Strava Technologies -- the company which developed the programme -- under which a one kilometre area of Trivendrum was captured using a drone.

Using the programme, the police can spot traffic violaters and also get their vehicle registation number on their screens. They can then send tickets through an SMS -- all this without physically confronting the violater.

Jancy Jose, the founder of the start up, said that the programme was developed by her company in June 2017 and should be fully-functional and commissioned by the Kerala Police by next year.

Another device -- Traffitizer -- developed by a start up launched by two cousins, will facilitate smooth running of ambulances even during the peak hours and without having to stop at traffic lights.

"Here is a system which is integrated into all the traffic junctions.. It's mobile based-software... To use this the drivers will have to turn on the device installed on the autobile's dashboard before starting the journey and within reaching 200 metres of a traffic junction, the light will automatically turn green. Time delay can be avoided. We have implemented it in Kochi at 15 junctions," Rajashekharan said.

The state police also displayed a Cyber Safety AR Card -- designed under a public private partnership -- to educate children on traffic rules.

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