An increasing emphasis is being placed on the creation of smart sites, whether they be buildings, campus-type solutions or smart cities. In a number of such applications, one of the significant issues is the number of stakeholders who have invested in disparate solutions. Often, unless these can be pulled together in a seamless and cohesive way, the benefits of such an approach cannot be realised. A solution could exist in the shape of fususONE.
Smart cities and intelligent campus solutions depend on a unified approach for continuity and the delivery of benefits, but this isn’t always practicable, as many have legacy systems implemented before today’s technology was even considered as a future option.
To address this, Fusus has launched its unified video platform for smart cities and communities. Fusus is specifically designed to remove the problems associated with disparate camera systems by fusing all private and public video sources into a single platform known as FususONE.
Fusus can be added to any network in any building, or anywhere in a city. This is simply achieved by adding the FususCORE appliance to a network. Within seconds, FususCORE detects, analyses and connects to every camera on the building’s network and sends a unified video feed to a single web-based interface. It also manages other information such as metadata and geolocation data.
Field-based users of the Fusus platform, such as police, fire or security personnel, can access a mobile version of the system via an iOS or Android compatible mobile app. This enables them to stream video from incident sites, transmit their location, send panic alerts, receive image and text alerts, and communicate directly with the command centre.
Video and associated data can also be supplemented by a wide range of IoT devices, enabling a diverse range of data to be made available, dependent upon needs.
Who controls the data?
The goal of FususONE is to allow responders to easily and seamlessly receive data from a variety of hosts, including (but not limited to) public surveillance systems, businesses, utilities, transport management, etc.. It allows a rapid and cost-effective expansion of the available resources when a need arises, enhancing situational awareness for those on the ground. It does not mean any particular team, be they the police, fire service or other first responders, have unlimited access or control of independent users’ video surveillance systems.
FususONE makes use of policy-based sharing to ensure video and associated data is only transmitted when required, while adhering to the privacy considerations of the users, based on the location of the video. In essence, individual users can decide what data can be shared, with whom and when.
For example, a school could limit video sharing to emergency situations, such as an incident when the educational facility is put into lockdown. At all other times, the video and associated data would be inaccessible. Retail establishments might prefer to allow a greater level of sharing, allowing access of streams from customer-facing areas but excluding video from back-of-house areas.
A blend of event-based and constant sharing is also possible, through the system’s rules-based engine. Businesses may share live video across a multi-occupancy environment while sharing only alarm events with first responders, if they desire.
The challenge
Fusus recognises that even the smartest city schemes are missing a major source of intelligence – data from both public and private video sources. Fusus bridges the gap between these disparate systems by pulling in video from multiple sources into a single video platform to speed response trom incidents and provide increased situational awareness.
Fusus was previously SecuroNet, a public-private camera mapping and registry company. The new brand and leadership team reflect the advances in video and IoT networking which has since developed in the sector. Fusus claims many video software companies built bloated and proprietary software because it was in their financial interest to control the user interface.
The fususONE approach disrupts this model, allowing video to be shared between public and private entities with the simple installation of the fususCORE appliance. It does not require costly integration fees, software licenses, servers or proprietary APIs.
The Fusus camera registry also allows all stakeholders to collect and securely share camera locations and recorded video evidence between private and public sources. In the event of a theft, for example, police may automatically request recorded video from a store owner to speed the process of evidence gathering for their investigation.
In summary
By breaking down silos to merge public and private video resources into a single, efficient and unified stream of information, the Fusus system eliminates the issues of disparate systems while requiring little hardware investment. The platform can link with existing video assets, creating a sophisticated video solution.
