INARI is a Research Lab exploring the use of Deep Learning to solve real industrial problems.
We are a joint venture between academia (ESPOL) and industry (TIA S.A.):
INARI creates value for academia by conducting and disseminating innovative research; likewise, industrial value is created by exploiting the results of our research.
A general focus of our research projects is to achieve automatic understanding of industrial operations through the use of artificial vision from videos obtained by low-cost ubiquitous CCTV cameras. Our systems aim to effectively integrate artificial vision with prescriptive analytics for assisting in operations management.
We have developed a people-counter system that analyses CCTV videos following a tracking-by-detection paradigm.
The system uses object detectors to locate every person in the video, it then uses a tracker to assign an ID to each detection to consolidates detections of the same person on different frames.
Heatmaps and traffic-flow analysis allow to make critical operational decisions at the retail scene, with applications, such as: hot-zones estimation, dwell-time calculation, and conversion-rate inference.
We developed a system to find and analyse trajectories of customers in a retail store, using videos from CCTV cameras.
We used an object detector to allow for fast (real time) traffic-flow and heatmap estimation of specific objects. Thus, the system is able to perform its analysis on clients, shopping carts or supermarket baskets, separately.
Furthermore, our system is able to reconstruct a large scene by transforming and consistently concatenating various video sources.
Heatmaps and traffic-flow analysis can then be performed on these larger-scene representations.
This project applies Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to provide an end-to-end method to solve the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) with multiple vehicles and heterogeneous capacities.
We propose a model and a training procedure to route a fleet of vehicles with different capacities to act cooperatively and solve the routing problem. Our trained model generates better solutions than commonly used heuristics for large instances; falling short to, however, Google’s OR-Tools.
It is important to note that our proposed model finds policies that can be used to automate the task of routing a heterogeneous fleet for any configuration of nodes. This is a limitation of methods like OR-Tools that need to set up and solve each instance individually.
Estimating the percentage of customers who leave a store without a purchase is of interest for retail analytics (e.g., for estimating store-performance metrics and benchmarking stores.)
At INARI we have developed a system for estimating the conversion rate of customers by analyzing the percentage of customers who hold a bag in their hands at the time of leaving the store.
The system achieves an accuracy of 90.5% on videos from CCTV cameras.
Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) remains a leading cause of vision loss worldwide. While, currently, there is no effective treatment for DR, early detection is critical because its progress may be slowed down.
At INARI we have developed a system that uses deep learning to determine the level of DR severity in a fundus image using clinically labeled images.
Additionally, our system can perform Retinal Image Segmentation and Feature Visualization.
Physical distancing is one of the most effective methods for mitigating the COVID-19 propagation without closing the economy. However, making sure that the people will follow the prevention measures can be a difficult task.
At INARI we developed a system that uses object-detection technology to monitor real-time human distancing by estimating a density metric in videos from CCTV cameras.
Additionally, this system protects the privacy of the individuals appearing in the videos, as it never identifies personal information.
At INARI, we developed a system capable of estimating the percentage of people using masks by analyzing the images in a video. The system detects if a person is using a mask and considers only the most trustworthy detections for the estimation.
The obtained analytics can be used to inform the authorities about the compliance of the population to the COVID-19 prevention measures.
A large number of thefts at supermarkets are perpetrated by individuals using specific types of wearable items, such as hats and sunglasses. This research project aims to develop an object-detection system trained to identify these types of items.
Our system consists of three modules:
Based on this information, the system presents real-time analytics about the percentage of detected persons with and without these items.
Our system achieves an accuracy of 91.37% and 90.11%, on sunglasses and hats, respectively.
We have developed various modules and systems for human-action recognition (HAR), adapting and expanding known literature on the topic.
We have developed various industrial applications of HAR at INARI, such as a fraud-detection system for self checkouts and a system for automatic industrial Time-and-Motion study.