Earlier this April, KLASS concluded its inaugural participation in the Milipol Asia-Pacific – TechX Summit 2024 (MAP-TXS 2024) event. A biennial event, MAP-TXS 2024 is a leading international homeland security exhibition for the Asia-Pacific region. The event is officially supported by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore and the Ministry of the Interior of France. Delegates, exhibitors and visitors from over 80 countries were present for the 3 day event from 3-5 April 2024.
It was a memorable and exciting journey for our Klassmates as they had the opportunity to see their own / fellow Klassmate’s work come to life, and their application / use cases for the public safety and homeland security sector. Through our interactive exhibitions (KlairifyTM, Knight OwlTM and Klass Robotics intelligence), visitors got to experience hands-on the features that our capabilities had to offer, helping them envision the possible use cases for their industry. Ivan Kukanov, our Principal Researcher (Speech Analytics), also had the opportunity to conduct a sharing session with our invited guests on trends, challenges and detection of fake speech.
At the event, we premiered the Klass Corporate Video, showcasing several of our innovative capabilities. Additionally, some of our Klassmates elaborated on the impact of their work on the local community and how our culture of exploration and learning motivates them. Check out the video here.
As the event has come to its conclusion, this article will serve to reflect on the journey to MAP-TXS 2024 and the learnings we have gleaned from our efforts.
As a SPI (Strategic Partner for Innovation) of the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX), we were invited to exhibit under the HTX Pavilion. We were honored and excited by the invitation extended to us and thus began our journey to prepare for our participation.
Our main goals for participation centered around increasing awareness of Klass as well as showcasing our solutions. Through our exhibit showcases, we aimed to raised the company profile as a reputable company in applied Research & Development (R&D) and bespoke solution creation. KlairifyTM, Knight OwlTM is a result of our drive to create solutions which are currently not offered on the market.
With our demonstrated track record in public safety solution development (through our delivered projects with HTX), we intended to showcase our strong commitment to championing innovation and being a trusted partner to our clients. Through our demonstrated capabilities, visitors would be able to see the synergies and applicability of our solutions to their use cases.
Knight OwlTM is our improved Small Object Detection in the Dark capability made possible through KLASS’ internal research. For the purposes of our demonstration, we decided to focus on small face detection. Low light is challenging for facial and object detection due to increased noise, blur, and reduced contrast. Our model performs in even the most challenging environments, being able to consistently detect small faces (10-20px, average size of faces in surveillance footage), in low light conditions. We are able to deliver up to 80% accuracy improvement over State-of-the-Art models. Our model is also capable of operating efficiently in real-time, being compatible with most existing camera systems. Visitors were able to experience Knight Owl on-site in real time with a dark room demo. In the dark room, visitors were able to view a live feed with our model running as we adjusted the lighting of the room, showcasing our model’s robustness in varying lighting scenarios. Visitors were also encouraged to obscure their faces with their clothing/objects, following which their faces were still able to be reliably detected, further enhancing their impression of our model.
KlairifyTM is our bespoke integrated search and sense-making toolkit which can leverage and cross-reference diverse data sources using AI to assist investigators. Operators are able to use natural language to conduct search through multimedia (audio and visual) databases for information and clues such as persons, uncommon objects, and identify scenes and context information. It can also conduct audio event search for instances of emergencies such as people’s cries. The toolkit is also integrated with a specialized vehicle search module, being able to recognize local license plates and car make and models. Lastly, the toolkit can also assist in speech authentication, detecting fake speech in audio clips which could lead to misinformation or disinformation. To showcase this integrated toolkit, visitors had the chance to witness a live demonstration of Klairify as we ran through several homeland security scenarios to show how the toolkit provides holistic assistance to public safety professionals.
Our Klass Robotics Intelligence featured our capabilities across two platforms: a four-legged robot (resembling a dog) and an indoor micro-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Both platforms feature custom software stacks developed by KLASS. Innovative features of our legged dog platform include the Follow-Me function, enabling hands-free user operation in operational settings, as well as autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance in mapped environments, facilitating remote operation in areas of interest. Additionally, our team has implemented the Return-to-Launch function, allowing the drone to autonomously return to its initial launch site, along with other functionalities like velocity-mixing to enhance ease of control and operation.
Visitors had the opportunity to experience our teleoperation function developed for both robotics platforms, remotely controlling devices located within the KLASS office premises. Furthermore, visitors could initiate the micro–UAV’s Return-to-Launch function in real-time.
The event presented us an opportune moment to engage with our clients, presenting our solutions and demonstrating how they could alleviate their challenges. Moreover, we had to pleasure of welcoming international delegates from nations like France and Germany.
In closing, we want to express our sincere appreciation to our outstanding partners, clients, and industry visitors for their steadfast support and invaluable feedback. We are enthusiastic about fostering these relationships further to advance innovation in the field of public safety.
