Critical infrastructureInfrastructure integrity
CAM-149
Rockfall on the access road
The access road to the dam, with the reservoir on one side and the cut slope on the other. A fall of earth and blocks has covered the right-hand lane and reaches the center line: there are loose stones scattered across the surface and blocks the size of a curbstone in the middle of the lane. Further up, a red and white barrier with a cone closes the road, and a white service pickup is stopped on the other side. The lane on the reservoir side is still clear.
Turn on IRIS Vision
AI-generated image
What IRIS understands
What it recognizes in this scene
- material on the roadway
- road cut slope
- vehicle stopped on the far side
- barrier closing the road
- roadway still clear
What this camera measures
An alert says something’s happening. The reading says how much.
- 14 minOn the roadway for
- 1 / 2Lanes blocked
- 14Loose blocks counted
- 1Vehicles stopped on the far side
- 0People in frame
- 08:50Time
The figures on this screen are an example from the illustration, not any client’s measurement.
The rule
You decide once. IRIS applies it always.
If
material appears on the access road roadway that was not there before and stays there
Then
- alert whoever is on call, with the camera, the spot and the video of the moment it came down
- say how much of the roadway is covered and whether anything can get through
- keep watching that same stretch and alert again if more comes down
The instruction that set it up«Tell me if material falls onto the access road, even if no vehicle goes past, and tell me how much of the roadway is left clear.»
What changes
What changes for whoever answers for the site
The access road is the only thing between the dam and anybody reaching it. If it is cut, the crew doesn’t arrive, the truck doesn’t arrive and neither does whoever has to operate a gate — and that matters more on the day you need it than in all the rest of the year. These roads are driven a few times a day, and sometimes not even that, so today a rockfall is discovered when somebody runs into it. With IRIS the alert goes out while the material is on the roadway, with the time and the spot, so you can close the road and tell whoever was about to drive up before they set off. IRIS doesn’t clear the road and doesn’t promise nothing else will come down: it says that something has.
What people usually ask
Can it tell a stone from a shadow or a patch of water?
What’s detected is material that appears on the roadway where there was nothing before and then stays put. A shadow moves with the sun and a patch of water dries; a block doesn’t. Even so, it’s a reading taken from the picture: in full darkness or with the road hidden by fog, the reading is worth less, and the system says so instead of inventing one.
And if the one going past is one of the site’s own vehicles?
A vehicle going past triggers nothing: the rule looks at material that appears and stays, not at things that cross. And even if it stops, IRIS does not identify it: it does not read license plates, it does not recognize faces and it does not store who anyone is. All it counts is that there’s a vehicle stopped short of the blockage, which is exactly the fact you need in order to know whether somebody is waiting on the other side.
Can it warn before it comes down?
No. IRIS doesn’t predict. It reports what’s happening, not what’s going to happen, and a camera doesn’t know what’s inside a slope. What does change is the time between something falling and somebody finding out: today that’s hours, and sometimes it’s the next day.
See it for yourself
A camera looks. IRIS understands what it sees.
An extract of the real screen, no voice-over and hands-free. Each round poses another situation. What sits behind it is a good deal bigger than what you see.
- The hour, as a grid
- You look where it’s dark
- You jump to that minute
Next step
Who sees the sales that never reach the register?
10 cases: 4 raise an alert when something happens and 6 only measure. You see each image as it is, and then with what IRIS understands on top.
Who is watching when the load swings over somebody?
11 cases: 9 raise an alert when something happens and 2 only measure. You see each image as it is, and then with what IRIS understands on top.
And the best part
Ten cameras or four thousand:not one of them goes unwatched.
The day IRIS starts, they all start: the ten in a school or the four thousand in a whole network. And it only raises its hand when the thing you asked for happens.
Tell us your problem and we’ll say whether IRIS understands it, or not yet.
A person answers, the same working day.