CLEVELAND – Illegal dumping has begun quickly in the City of Cleveland in 2023, but so is the city in its effort to combat the chronic problem with the development of surveillance systems that use artificial intelligence.
The city has teamed up with Cleveland State University and Case Western Reserve University through the Internet of Things, or IOT Collaborative, to create a smart camera system that will be able to detect illegal dumping as it happens and report it to law enforcement.
The development project was made possible with a grant from the Cleveland Foundation.
Nick Barendt, CWRU’s executive director of the Institute for Smart, Secure, Connected Systems, told News 5 that field testing of the systems will take place in the coming months.
“How do we use technology, but we make sure that we do it in a way that will take care of the needs of the community,” said Barendt. “How do we improve the performance of these types of systems and reduce false positives.”
Mark Durdak
Barendt said his team will build a corridor on one of the campuses that can be used as a controlled testing area.
“Where we can drag boxes or furniture or whatever into the viewing area and make sure we see that,” he said. There will have to be some privacy in terms of the building, and the signs and other things that we will have to put up with.”
Mark Durdak
Brian Ray, a law professor at Cleveland State University and director of the Center for Cyber Security and Privacy Protection, told News 5 that the group is working to create smart cameras that won’t cause privacy issues for neighbors.
“We don’t want a ‘big’ society, but we want to end wrongful convictions,” said Ray. good people.”
Mr. Durdak
Ray said AI is taking responsibility for aspects such as monitoring.
“One must monitor that system until it becomes a system focused on enforcing the law, one must have the power to use it,” he said.
Larry Jones II, Cleveland’s deputy public safety commissioner, said the effort will work using the same camera technology that is part of Cleveland’s existing 1,700 video surveillance system.
“We want to work on an analysis program that will identify real garbage bags, tires, maybe TV screens, things that have been bothering us in our neighborhoods,” said Jones. in those notifications, instead of activating normal movement in the area.”
Mark Durdak
Jones acknowledged that additional human capital in the form of additional city staff will also be needed to make the AI smart camera surveillance system work.
“We can forward this to the law enforcement and prosecutors and follow some of those who commit these crimes in the areas where we live,” he said. “We hope to prevent people from committing this crime of illegal dumping, so the point of having signs and making sure the areas are well lit although our LED project is at the forefront of this.”
The IOT Collaborative team hopes to have an AI-powered landfill monitoring prototype completed by the end of summer 2023.
