The Challenge
CoastalCOMS was founded in Queensland in 1998 as a group that delivers a total solution for specialized video content analytics and environmental monitoring via public and private cloud architectures. This was extremely innovative at the time and attracted a lot of attention.
In the mid 2000s Australia’s Queensland government contracted CoastalCOMS to create a system to better monitor local environmental assets as part of its Smart State Initiative.
For this project the company created a spinoff group called EnviroCOMS to develop environmental engineering applications. With financial backing from the government, EnviroCOMS produced advanced digital weather models, smart data analytics and reporting and a system for storing and managing manual and real-time environmental data.
Early in its existence EnviroCOMS archived and stored video on its own video management software (VMS) platform. In 2007,EnviroCOMSmanagement faced a two-pronged challenge: develop a more advanced environmental digital asset management system thatcouldcommunicate with a VMS; and select a cloud-hosted infrastructure where theVMS and data could be hosted.
EnviroCOMSlooked for a new VMS to fuse seamlessly with their data systems. They needed a large-scale system to work globally monitoring video and images while also processing environmental data and analytics.
Early IP Adoption Leads EnviroCOMS to Milestone
CoastalCOMS’s first cameras were broadcasting live on the Internet in 1999. Chris Lane, co-founder of CoastalCOMS, said the company was doing IP streaming before IP cameras existed.
“We have long believed that IP was the way of the future,” Lane said.
“So,it was logical that we would gravitate to the software platform leading the IP video revolution which is Milestone.”
EnviroCOMS decided to incorporate the Milestone open platform into its monitoring system due to its flexibility and robust levels of support.
“Milestone has been a superb addition to our solutions,” Lane said. “It supports so many different cameras and we can really dig into the software to tailor it to our specifications. It allows for an incredible level of granularity.
Lane and his team have had Milestone XProtect software incorporated into their solution since 2009. The system primarily monitors wave heights, measures shoreline erosion and calculates beach population density. This is done internationally in partnership with various coastguards and city councils to improve beach safety and analyze risk-prevention tactics.
“We used the Milestone rules engine to drive cameras based on time profiles,” said Lane. “After the event we would extract recordings during those profiles and our video extraction and processing (VEAP) system would dig through the workflow and process the results.
”EnviroCOMS has been using Amazon cloud-hosted infrastructure since 2007 which allows Laneto run cameras on beaches across California, Hawaii and Australia, and quickly push video to a command center without needing individuals on each beach manning the equipment.”
EnviroCOMS customers include CoastalWATCH, Surf Life Saving, port authorities and governmental departments among other specialized consultancy groups.
Choosing the right cloud infrastructure was an important piece of this puzzle. The team is impressed with how well Amazon and Milestone work together. There have not beenany issues with storage.
EnviroCOMS Develops a New Smart City Application
EnviroCOMS has now built a self-monitoring data asset management system robust enough to handle all types of environmental monitoring.
They were recently tasked with creating a smart water application for the Australian city of Townsville on the northeast coast. This is part of the Queensland government funded Sensor-Q project which aims to unite James Cook University and CoastalCOMS in an effort to initiate practical applied science and research projects in Queensland. The initiative is supported by a grant from the Queensland Government Accelerate Program.
As part of the Sensor-Q project the city council in Townsville is also leveragingMilestone to create a smarter, more sustainable city. Working in concert with EnviroCOMS, Townsville is using Milestone to develop a low-cost system to help monitor urban water usage and measure water quality from creeks and streams.
“We’re looking at a really powerful solution here,” said Lane. “Our custom environmental data management system leverages Milestone for a solution that measures water level on spillways and records video of certain positions of a dam. It stores video archives and processes environmental data and advanced environmental analytics. It’s more than just security. It’s a business intelligence application.”
Other EnviroCOMS Projects
EnviroCOMSis currently partnering with dozens of environmental projects around the globe including one on the Gold Coast Seaway. Still images are taken from three set positions in the seaway every 30 minutes from the EnviroCOMS camera, processed in the Milestone platform and exported to researchers. The idea for this project beganin August 2015 when a dirty water plume was discovered in the Seaway. In December James Cook University deployed a water quality buoy with sensor equipment to take measurements of temperature and turbidity in the area.
EnviroCOMS is also partnering with the All Saints Anglican School on the Gold Coast inQueensland to monitor its wetlands. A camera and weather station have been installed to collect images and live data feeds of wind speed, wind direction and rainfall. This data assists school students with projects on environmental monitoring. Measurements of temperature and turbidity are recorded in the wetlands and relayed back through Milestone.
The image data includes daily one-minute video clips at 7 a.m. from set camera positions which are collected and stored in the Milestone platform. These videosare used to count the number of birds in the wetland area. Daily snapshots at 8 a.m. are also taken from these positions which can be used to create a time-lapse video of changes to the wetland before and after a flooding event.
“Milestone has become a critical tool for us,” Chris Lane said. “We’re leveraging its video capabilities to monitor major environmental changes which will help us make more informed decisions about how we take care of our precious natural resources moving forward.”
Looking to the Future
Lane said that the next step is to build a data management toolset that allows customers like Townsville city council to manage their own projects. The EnviroCOMS solution includes high quality visualization and reporting tools and it is currently working on leveraging Milestone to create a data management asset system that can handle video and images in addition to large data streams. EnviroCOMS originally designed an internal solution, but is now working to create a system that each of their customers cantailor to their specifications.
“We want to put the power of our solution in the hands of the people who are using it,” Lanesaid. “That means pulling in third-party data streams like weather providers and tide gauges. Milestone gives us the ability to see video and images in real time. When we combine that with powerful data and analytics processing, we get truly unique and innovative solutions.”