Page 27 - EE Times Europe March 2022

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Thermal Imaging for Smart Homes

Chen, sales manager at Generalplus. “When
Meridian’s engineer mounts its thermal imag-
ing module on our AI SoC platform [Figure 6],
it is a masterpiece in the making. A cost-
effective and standalone solution is born to
integrate temperature into audio, video, and
graphics with convolutional neural network
[CNN] functions for smart and AI applica-
tions. When presenting such a solution, we
have seen great interest from customers in
this cutting-edge technology to create an
innovative product for a better tomorrow.”

CONCLUSION
Thermal imaging sensors are poised to
augment the functionality and value of many
products in our homes, allowing us to solve
long-standing challenges, such as wellness
monitoring and fall and fire prevention,
while raising the energy efficiency and com-
fort of our living spaces and even helping
us make better meals. These advances are
enabled by the volume availability of a new
generation of cost-efficient thermal imagers
with resolution of thousands and even tens
of thousands of pixels.
At the same time, we see a proliferation
of accessible reference hardware designs
Figure 5: Smart baby monitoring (Source: Courtesy of 5GenCare) and software solutions that greatly facilitate
adoption of the technology and enable fast
global trends: increased life expectancy and WHEN THERMAL IMAGING MEETS AI development cycle of innovative products
aging of the population, and the increas- CHIPSET incorporating thermal imaging cameras.
ing number of elderly people living alone. To bring integrated reference designs to Indeed, this is pivotal. One co-founder of
Thermal imaging may help in many ways, OEMs and ODMs, Meridian Innovation is Meridian Innovation, a company that has
from simple monitoring of vital signs of collaborating with Generalplus Technology, been at the forefront of this revolution,
temperature and motion all the way to com- a Taiwan-based global supplier of integrated expresses it this way: “Thermal imaging sen-
plex behavioral analytics. One common and circuits known for its consumer products sors are like the eyes of a person; they need a
important theme in elder care is the detection and for home-appliance solutions used in mil- sophisticated intelligence behind [them], in
and even the prevention of falls. While this lions of the industry’s top-brand products. order to make sense of all the thermal data
can be achieved with the installation of visual “We are excited to partner with Meridian that is coming through.”
cameras in the living room, one would not put Innovation; their thermal imaging module Thus, the stage is set for the unfolding of
cameras in a bathroom — and yet bathrooms and Generalplus’s AI chip are a perfect solu- yet another compelling story in which tech
pose the highest risk. tion for smart-home [products],” said Jacky innovation fosters safer and better living. ■
With this in mind, a team from LSCM
Hong Kong pioneered a thermal camera
solution, built on a relatively low-resolution
LWIR sensor with just under 5,000 pixels.
This resolution is high enough to allow for
pose estimation but small enough to allow
for continuous, real-time thermal image
processing with modest computational
power — and, most importantly, to preserve
privacy. The unit locally runs a sophisticated
algorithm able to detect the occurrence of
an accident or a fall and alert a responsible
nurse or family member about the incident.
The product won a gold medal at the 47th
International Exhibition of Inventions in
Geneva in 2019.
Other companies are developing camera
solutions that help nursing facilities prevent
common accidents. When a resident gets out
of bed, such units can detect that the person is
awake and promptly alert a caretaker to attend. Figure 6: SmartForm Kit (Source: Courtesy of Generalplus)

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