ADT Commercial can help manage your organization’s risks with custom integrated solutions to help cover all your locations — inside and out. One of the solutions they will be showcasing this year at their ISC West booth March 28-31 is their new EvoGuard suite of intelligent guarding solutions and services
Campus Safety spoke with William Plante, ADT Commercial’s director of emerging technologies strategic development to find out what visitors will see when they drop on by.
Campus Safety: What is the top product or offering your company is showing off at ISC West this year, and what makes it special? How does it apply to healthcare facilities, schools and/or higher education security, public safety and/or emergency management?
William Plante: EvoGuard by ADT Commercial is a new suite of intelligent guarding solutions and services aimed at helping to cost-effectively enhance corporate security programs, while responding to high turnover rates and ongoing labor shortages in the guarding market.
Targeted for commercialization in later 2023, EvoGuard will use artificial intelligence and augmented reality in combination with a fleet of humanoid robots by Halodi Robotics and autonomous indoor drones by Indoor Robotics for comprehensive security surveillance in a wide variety of commercial areas, including healthcare and educational campus environments.
With EvoGuard by ADT Commercial, the goal is for organizations to be able to effectively enhance their security programs and supplement human guard services by deploying intelligent autonomous guarding solutions at their facilities. Capabilities currently in development would allow organizations to:
- Efficiently automate routine tasks, including 24/7 patrols with constant alertness
- Capture evidence of disturbances or unauthorized personnel for faster alarm verification
- Quickly respond to high-risk or hazardous scenarios without risking human life
- Cost-effectively increase surveillance while reducing labor costs and overcoming staffing shortages
In partnership with Norway-based robotics company, 1X Technologies — formerly Halodi Robotics — the humanoid robot is being developed to:
- Conduct patrols in commercial facilities
- Perform two-way communications between the public and an operator
- Open doors and operate elevators
- Interact with employees
- Inspect and remove hazards or obstructions
- Capture 360-degree view of patrol areas via a robust camera system
- Self-dock and self-charge at designated stations
The robot will be able to be operated in avatar mode by using a virtual reality system. This feature will create a live telepresence environment for a human controller to remotely interact with real-life surroundings through the robot. This capability could further enable cost savings in the future for organizations by reducing the dependencies of having to send personnel to a remote, high-risk, or potentially dangerous location in response to an event.
Live from the Innovation Lab: Robot Pictionary
In collaboration with Israel-based Indoor Robotics, the goal of the Tando autonomous indoor drone, currently in development, would be to function as an additional layer of 24/7 surveillance to patrol commercial facilities. Primary features being developed include:
- Ability to program a destination or set an autonomous patrol route at routine intervals
- Option to program alerts from external sensors to trigger investigatory flights and interact with security incidents in virtually real-time
- Always-on video feed to provide 360-degree surveillance — whether in flight or monitoring from a docking station
- Onboard thermal cameras, people detection capabilities, and object avoidance analytics to alert and respond to potential hazards
- Intuitive user interface with indoor-only capabilities, so users do not need to be experienced drone pilots or certified by the FAA to manage a drone fleet or conduct patrols.
The autonomous indoor drone is currently in its piloting phase, with anticipated commercialization targeted for later in 2023.
CS: How do your company and its offerings address the needs of hospitals, schools and/or universities?
Plante: From a healthcare perspective, ADT Commercial is well-equipped to design and implement innovative security, fire, and life safety solutions to meet the needs of the entire spectrum of healthcare organizations and educational institutions. Our focus on leading-edge technologies, and a holistic, integrated approach to security help our customers to deliver a secure and safe environment for students, faculty, patients, caregivers, and more.
Additionally, our approach to innovation and emerging technology exploration has always been with the needs of campus environments – healthcare, education, and more – in mind. Campuses represent a unique environment with their own challenges that require thoughtful and innovative design approaches to provide a cost- and performance-effective program. We also recognize that campuses experience many of the same security issues as commercial companies, and are likewise impacted by guard staffing challenges and ongoing shortages. Emerging technologies – like EvoGuard – offer broader options for solving operational and performance issues with a return on investment (ROI) that is appealing to organizations with restricted operating expense budgets. ADT Commercial has extensive experience designing security systems and related controls in a wide variety of campus environments that extend from the conceptual pre-schemantic design phase to the installation and turnover.
CS: What else is new or noteworthy about your company for 2023?
Plante: As we strive to be a true innovator for the industry and our customers, we’re not only focused on developing emerging technology, but are also identifying ways we can elevate some of the most fundamental operations that are critical to securing facilities and are the core to our business. This year, we’re focused on creating a new industry standard where we believe it matters most — across our centralized operations, including improvements to our monitoring services and alarm response, which are the backbone to our customers’ security programs, including:
- Real-Time Service Resolution™ for more immediate issue diagnosis and enhanced convenience with an increase in virtual service calls. By working with our Technical Services Group, we can troubleshoot customer issues remotely, identify solutions quickly, and resolve system issues virtually to save them time and maximize convenience. And should it be determined that a technician will be needed onsite, they’ll be more informed of the situation in order to ensure timely, first-day resolutions.
- Faster alarm response technology, including ADT Commercial Smart Alerts™ and ADT Commercial Smart Dispatch™, to build better connections with first responders and reduce false alarms. ADT Commercial Smart Alerts is the new way for our organization to more immediately notify customers of an intrusion alarm at their commercial location. If an alarm is triggered, the customers’ designated account contacts will receive a text message with a link to an ADT Commercial Smart Alerts session where they can verify or cancel the alarm. ADT Commercial Smart Dispatch enables direct electronic alarm signal delivery into 911 centers, which aims to increase notification accuracy and speed, reduce operator delay during peak times for both ADT Commercial and 911 dispatchers, minimize risks for errors and misrouting agencies, and ensure a prioritized emergency response with advanced analytics and device data driven by ADT Commercial. These technologies work to streamline 911 operations, prioritize verified alarm response, and reduce the occurrence of false alarms that may incur costly fines.
- Providing immediate actions and insight with updates to our eSuite account management platform, including more self-service features and accessible insights to empower our customers to take action and feel in control of their security ecosystem. eSuite provides immediate, user-friendly online access to customers’ ADT Commercial security, fire & life safety systems and services. Customers can log into eSuite to gain real-time, actionable insight into their protected locations, and perform a wide variety of security-based and administrative functions – all from their browser or mobile device. We’ve continued to make critical enhancements to our eSuite account management platform to include more self-service features for immediate response. We’re arming our customers with crucial business insights so they can make better decisions and feel empowered to take action.
- Offering trusted security, fire, and life safety experts that our customers can count on and trust to have the experience, confidence, and knowledge to service their complex, integrated security systems and solutions. We’ve always prided ourselves on the incredible industry experience of our teams — always aiming to be the most technically trained, knowledgeable provider in the industry. We want customers to know that they’ll be supported by a tenured team with decades of industry experience from the moment of installation through each step of service, with the necessary certifications to maintain their security ecosystem.
CS: What is your company’s overall value proposition to schools, universities and/or hospitals? Why should they do business with you?
Plante: Campuses have unique issues and challenges that require a high degree of collaboration, prior experience, and innovative thinking. ADT Commercial is equipped with the depth of experience and breadth of capabilities to design solutions that are appropriate to the organization’s culture and that cost-effectively solve for those challenges.
Visit ADT Commercial at ISC West Booth No. 20007 or online at adt.com/commercial.
