ZeroEyes launches ZeroLink to support its gun-detection solution in off-network scenarios while the company expands situational-awareness capabilities
By Donny Jackson, Editor,Urgent Communications
ZeroEyes recently launched ZeroLink, an offering that supports its popular gun-detection solution in off-network environments as the company also expands its automated situational-awareness capabilities into the detection of knives, vehicles and human intrusions, according to ZeroEyes co-founder Sam Alaimo.
For several years, ZeroEyes has focused its efforts on developing AI-powered gun-detection technology, but the company is expanding its offering to also include detection of other objects in response to market demand, Alaimo said.
“With the proliferation of technologies, we’re seeing a demand for more analytics, but also a request from clients and prospects not to have 18 different providers out there—they don’t want 18 different providers with 18 different analytics,” Alaimo said.
“Now, the market has changed. It is no longer, ‘Be the best in the world at one thing.’ It’s now, ‘Can you be the best in multiple analytics and be their sole provider?’ And that’s OK. We’ve accomplished the first thing—we’ve started in the right direction—and now we’re adapting.”
Teaching ZeroEyes technology to detect knives was a challenge, according to Alaimo.
“It was extremely difficult,” he said. “The front end [challenge] is building a model that can accurately identify a knife while reducing false positives of everything else that looks like a knife, which is almost everything.
“We do focus on longer knives, which has been the cause of the vast majority of knife problems in the UK and the US. But to pick up something like a one-and-a-half-inch knife, everything looks like that, from the camera’s point of view. As the cameras get better, that might be possible. But right now, we focus on the longer [knives], which has been the consistent requests we’re getting from the UK and even moreso now in the US. It took months. We’re still in the process of refining it, but it’s at the point now where it’s deployable.”
In addition to knives, ZeroEyes now also can support detection of vehicles and humans into geofenced locations, as well as provide alerts to objects that have been “left behind,” such as a backpack that potentially could contain an explosive device, Alaimo said.
Alaimo said ZeroEyes is taking a measured approach to rolling out the new detection capabilities.
“We’re rolling out [the new analytics] essentially as we rolled out gun detection in 2020—it’s going to be careful, it’s going to be deliberate, and it’s going to be an iterative process, and we’re upfront with our clients about that,” Alaimo said. “But yes, these are deployable.”
In addition to expanding its detection capabilities, ZeroEyes also is expanding the potential footprints of its capabilities significantly with the launch of ZeroLink, which lets the ZeroEyes software be deployed in environments beyond the locations of fixed cameras at a school or other facility.
“One thing that we have that is active and ready to go is ZeroLink, where we’re basically able to deliver our gun detection—and now also knife detection—off network, which was a serious limiting capacity for a long time,” Alaimo said.
“That means that, if you have a light pole 100 meters out in you parking lot, or if you have a vehicle you want to drive around—a mobile facility, a different building or a mobile trailer—we’re going to be able to use ZeroLink to identify that off network, which opens up a whole world of use cases.”
“ZeroLink represents an important step forward in how organizations can extend security to locations that were previously difficult or cost-prohibitive to monitor,” Lahiff said in a prepared statement. “By removing the traditional barriers of infrastructure and connectivity, ZeroEyes is making it easier for businesses to deploy reliable, AI-based gun detection and situational awareness virtually anywhere.”
This includes leveraging ZeroEyes technology on mobile vehicles and drones to enhance situational awareness about locations that could not be covered previously, Alaimo said.
“Think about an aerial drone that—if there is an event—would be flown there, instead of compromising the life of a person—has the gun-detection, knife-detection and left-behind-objects [capabilities],” Alaimo said. “That drone will be able to send back the alert. Instead of waiting for that individual to be in front of a static camera, we’ll fly the drone to them.”
Ultimately, it is theoretically possible for ZeroEyes technology to identify a threat and for a drone to take action to neutralize that threat, but Alaimo said his company is approaching this potential with a significant amount of caution.
“There are a lot of interesting companies out there using the drone to actually end the threat, but that’s tricky” Alaimo said. “You can see that on the news, with people flying drones into potential shooter, flying them into the guns, etc.—maybe there’s a taser on it.
“We’re being very careful. But identifying guns, knives and drones from drones, we’re on that—we can do it. Using the drone to actually stop something from actually happening, that’s tricky. We’re going to be very careful with that, because that can go wrong as fast as it can go right.”
Alaimo clarified that ZeroEyes does not plan to build drones for such purposes; instead, it is looking for drone partners.
“We’re talking to quite a few drone companies to see what that looks like—the best place to do it and the best companies,” Alaimo said. “It’s interesting.”
