PRIVATETRACK: Privacy-friendly, low-power intelligent room occupancy detection and people counting.

Project Information

PRIVATETRACK

Grant agreement ID: 882324

DOI

10.3030/882324

Project closed

EC signature date 12 December 2019

Start date 1 November 2019

End date 29 February 2020

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

INIVATION AG
Switzerland

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PRIVATETRACK (PRIVATETRACK: Privacy-friendly, low-power intelligent room occupancy detection and people counting.)

Reporting period: 2019-11-01 to 2020-02-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Capacity planning is crucial to safely and efficiently run large spaces such as shopping centres, airports, train stations, or other venues. It is critical to monitor and manage people flow to ensure optimal safety, energy efficiency and resource allocation for such buildings and areas. There are several use cases, for example, where operators must know how many people are inside a venue in order to comply with maximum occupancy safety rules and emergency evacuation procedures. Monitoring traffic flow is also key to plan and implement strategies to avoid accidents in transport hubs. Similarly, in a busy airport, a key aspect for management is to allocate staff accordingly and to better manage the security lines.
Video camera based people counting and tracking systems, apart from being expensive, do not respect the privacy of the occupants in a given space. This takes particular importance with the surge in privacy laws, especially the GDPR in Europe. Other currently available privacy-friendly alternatives for people counting (such as those based on Active Infrared, WiFi Tracking, Thermal or Ultrasonic sensors) are not accurate, reliable or mobile. Therefore, there is an urgent need in the market for a privacy-friendly, accurate and mobile people counting and tracking solution. To address this need, iniVation is developing PrivateTrack – a privacy-friendly and mobile solution that does not compromise on accuracy.

The objectives for iniVation during this Phase 1 period were to define a minimum viable product, establish a feasible product development plan, analyse the opportunities and regulatory requirements prior to bringing the product to the market.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the feasibility assessment, iniVation completed a full analysis of the technical and business potential of PrivateTrack. iniVation gained critical information based on ongoing meetings and discussions with their partners and stakeholders that will contribute to the commercial success of PrivateTrack. iniVation also received valuable guidance from the Business Development Coach appointed under the Phase 1 grant. A sound business model and commercialisation strategy has been established for the anticipated market launch, including a detailed assessment of the go-to-market customer segment for the main target users for PrivateTrack. iniVation has analysed the needs of this customer segment, their financial capacity and willingness to pay for this solution to determine the optimal business model that would be most attractive to customers whilst maximizing revenue.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Through this Phase 1 feasibility study, iniVation has successfully completed a full analysis of the technical and business potential of PrivateTrack. Throughout the project, iniVation has greatly expanded their knowledge regarding the technical validation and commercialisation strategy for the European market launch of its product. The pending activities to bring the PrivateTrack solution to a fully functioning privacy-friendly people-counting solution have been clearly defined and the steps needed to achieve the same have also been understood. iniVation has zeroed-in on the ability of PrivateTrack towards becoming a mobile space monitoring solution that will allow not only allow operators to effectively manage their spaces, but also use the occupancy data for other needs including resolution of conflicts, dynamic space pricing and avoidance of dead-zones. Further on, iniVation has concluded that the solution’s ability for accurate occupancy detection can also be extended towards improving the efficient and optimal use of resources and time – which will definitely have a positive impact towards creating a sustainable and privacy-friendly solution for Europe and elsewhere.

Image illustrating the components (left) of a privacy-friendly mobile people-tracking unit (right) f