For immediate release: December 2020 PRESS RELEASE
Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation (CIRC) partner with Microsoft Azure for disaster prevention in Taiwan
CIRC and Microsoft have partnered to combine drones with Microsoft Azure cloud service database, data analysis and Internet of Things technologies to create an intelligent autonomous security control drone solution for real-time image capture and modelling operations.
The UAV market is forecast to be worth US $46.7 billion by 2025 as 5G manufacturers embrace IoT and AI applications. Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation (CIRC) a subsidiary of Coretronic Corp (TWN 5371) and Microsoft have partnered to use the CIRC autonomous AI drone system in conjunction with Microsoft Azure IoT cloud services to monitor silt movements in Taiwan’s ports rivers and reservoirs and landslide dangers along transport systems and in populous areas. This real-time autonomous monitoring system reduces the risk to staff in harsh environments and provides faster insights that increases safety. The system utilizes drones to autonomously capture data, and AI to create 3D models and provide analysis.
Andy Hsin, general manager of CIRC and Microsoft’s Dr. Hedy Ho, Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft Taiwan discuss the disaster prevention in Taiwan
Dr. Hedy Ho, Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft Taiwan, said: “Together with our partners, Microsoft’s commitment to sustainability is to use technology to contribute to the long-term management of the environment. CIRC’s use of drones and data analysis to predict dangers in Taiwan’s rivers, ports and slopes is a great example of this and we look forward to working with them and other partners to develop environmental solutions.”
Microsoft Azure adds value to the CIRC autonomous drones and helps collect and analysis data and so contribute to environmental safety. Utilizing the R&D strengths and volume manufacturing capability of their parent company, Coretronic, in electronic assembly, opto-electronics, thermal engineering and power management, CIRC has developed an autonomous drone system that can perform unmanned missions and analysis collected data. This system can be used, for example, for facilities inspection, surveying, security, police and first responder or military applications. Andy Hsin, general manager of CIRC commented, “Taiwan often has land slide disasters during typhons or in the rainy season. Deploying teams to these areas puts them in danger. The CIRC drone system, utilizing the Azure platform provides remote high quality data capture without endangering personnel. The captured data is then analyzed in our Azure cloud system which provides predications and insights that can be used to prevent disasters or provide live monitoring in the unfortunate event of an incident and so provide detailed situational information to increase the effectiveness of disaster relief teams.” CIRC utilized the low latency of the Microsoft Azure IoT platform to build the following two major components of this autonomous drone monitoring system:
SkyWatch: the CIRC drone Fleet Management System: Provides mission control over a single or fleet of drones
Insight: the CIRC AI data analysis platform: Provides object detection, object status identification and analysis as well as 3D visualization of 2D data using a MLOps (Machine Learning DevOps) platform – for example overlaying captured terrain images on a 3D map of a disaster area to provide response teams with more accurate insights and so aid a more effective response.
Monitoring silt movements in Taiwan's reservoirs and ports using the CIRC autonomous drone system
In addition, CIRC has partnered with Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) and FarEasTelecom to assist the Hsinchu Environmental Protection Bureau and Taipei City police force in various applications increasing operation efficiency, whilst lowering risk to personnel.
CIRC uses the Microsoft Azure platform to monitor hazardous environments remotely
To learn more about the CIRC autonomous drone solutions, please visit https://www.coretronic-robotics.com/
To learn more about the Microsoft Azure platform, please visit https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/
About CIRC
A subsidiary of the Coretronic group, Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation (CIRC) provides advanced technologies including computer vision, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and motion control. We use these technologies, combined with Coretronic’s core engineering optical, micro-mechanical, thermal and power management competencies to provide commercial intelligent robotic solutions. Currently, CIRC focus on autonomous intelligent drones and 3D SLAM Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) solutions. We offer original design manufacturing (ODM) and joint design manufacturing services that include system specification design, software design, manufacturing, validation and after sales support and service.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
