Indian Army has been struggling with stone pelters in Jammu & Kashmir for a long time now, and a group of students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) - Madras have decided to do something about it. As an aid to the army, the team of IITians has offered to use artificial intelligence (AI) to detect crowd behaviour.
The concept first gained visibility during the Army Technology Seminar-2019 in Delhi, an initiative by the Army Design Bureau to collaborate the army and the private sector for meeting the force¡¯s requirements. Four IIT students presented how crowd analysis could be used in the prevalent situations in the J&K region, where stone pelters aim to distract the army personnels from carrying out their operations.
Reuters
¡°Using action recognition algorithms, crowd density maps and analysis of live images coming in from CCTV cameras, it is possible to predict abnormal events including stone pelting. We think it could help the Indian Army that faces such attacks regularly in J&K,¡± explained S Raghav Vaidyanathan (student executive head - Centre for Innovation, IIT-Madras)?to an HT correspondent.
Former army vice-chief Lieutenant General AS Lamba (retd) said innovative solutions such as AI-assisted prediction of crowd behaviour could be tried out in J&K where the situation is most difficult. ¡°Such innovations could lead to a good solution in the long term.¡±
Reuters
While the solution looks promising and can definitely lead on to a big relief for the army, its actual implications and effectiveness will have to be tested before the Indian Army can incorporate it into their regime. For this, a team of army officers is likely to visit Chennai soon.
Army has been actively involved in such idea exchanges with various institutes of the country as well as the private sector. Recently, IIT Delhi came up with the concept of waterless hygiene for the Indian Army soldiers posted in regions with extreme temperatures like Siachen.