CIRC (Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation): 5G + AIoT + Autonomous: Creating a New Epoch of Intelligent Drones

How does the world look like from above? Looking through a bird’s eye view has always fascinated humankind. After all, when one looks down from a higher elevation, the entire scenario can be comprehended more clearly, both literally and figuratively. Owing to this, the progress of drone technology is constantly adding new colors to the human’s desire for aerial viewing.

While drones were initially designed for military reconnaissance purposes, there is now a wider adoption of drones for a multitude of applications, such as security, inspection, surveying and mapping, disaster prevention, delivery, traffic management, and the list can go on. Key reasons behind such extensive drone applications its easy availability and diminishing cost. Nevertheless, even though many new companies are mushrooming in the drone technology sector, only a selected few have showcased the commitment and innovative approach necessary to establish themselves as market leaders. One such drone technology maven and market leader in the APAC region is Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation (CIRC), a Coretronic Group subsidiary.

Notably, Coretronic Group’s core competencies lie indisplay solutions, system integration, AI technologies, and motion control development. CIRC combines these competencies with advanced technologies to develop human-computer interaction, motion control systems, navigation technologies, and intelligent commercial robotics solutions for drones. To ensure that its drones can fully meet customers’ expectations for various applications, CIRC offers original and joint design manufacturing services, including system-specific design, software designing, manufacturing, validation, and after-service. “Our holistic drone solutions for the industry include intelligent drones, charging stations, and flight control systems,” underscores Andy Hsin, general manager of CIRC.

Developed for security and inspection purposes, the CIRC drones feature military-grade product specifications and are equipped with live image capturing, autonomous object recognition and tracking, EDGE computing, AI, and data analysis capabilities. These drones are weather-resistant, and CIRC ensures adequate safety by adding eight propellers to their drones. Moreover, the CIRC drones are easy to operate, and they can autonomously take off, fly, and land with high precision. Hsin adds, “Being highly intelligent and autonomous, our drones provide an innovative and reliable option for any organization to be future-ready.”

Hsin further elaborates that with CIRC’s user-friendly operation interface, drone operators can upload customized routes for drones to follow during their flight.

The security drones can then continuously patrol along the designated route to ensure that the ground team and control center does not miss a single detail. Armed with RGB visual and thermal and IR cameras, these drones can then instantly capture high-quality images during the flight. In case any anomaly is detected through the images, CIRC drones can analyze it using neural networks and deep learning, and immediately alert the control center. According to Hsin, these surveillance drones are well-suited for industrial sites, dams, bridges, power plants, factories, traffic systems, or public facilities.

Further, today, these security drones are also gaining traction for landform monitoring, mapping, construction, and building information modeling (BIM). Equipped with twin tripod head— one with RGB/Thermal/IR Camera and the other with high-definition or tilt camera—these drones are proving extremely beneficial in mapping and modeling. And, to gain very high accuracy, CIRC has also introduced real-time kinematic (RTK), a satellite navigation technique used to enhance the precision of position data (centimeters level accuracy). Operators can capture the live video through drones and later upload all the geographic data on the cloud to generate a 3D map.

On the other hand, organizations fighting against any natural or man-made disasters can also leverage CIRC drones to identify any irregularity by comparing spots images collected throughout the mission. The thermal camera can easily spot any occurrence of unusual temperature, and the responsible teams can act upon it.

Such proven capabilities of CIRC have led the company to partner with many governments and public sector agencies time and again. Especially in terms of government initiatives, CIRC has been part of many projects, namely reservoir inspection on Mudan Dam (Taiwan) for watershed management and disaster reduction; reservoir inspection around Xiuguluan River (Taiwan) to determine the amount of sand and measure earthwork; and AI data analysis for Suhua Highway (Taiwan) to inspect landslide and reduce disasters. CIRC has also collaborated with KDDI/LG Uplus for introducing G6.0, a drone compatible with smart drone platforms, in Japan and South Korea. The G6.0 is a portable AI-friendly, fully autonomous drone that can measure 500mm across and weighs less than 3kg. It is highly resistant to dust and water, expected to find use in monitoring and inspecting infrastructure and large facilities.

Notably, another CIRC’s partnership that has recently made headlines is the one with Chunghwa Telecom’s(CHT) commercial 5G network. The collaboration went particularly well for both the companies as it helped them introduce ‘the first 5G drone in Taiwan.’ They have successfully introduced remote drone inspection and real-time 4K ultra-HD transmission over 5G connectivity. Alongside this, the company is also working with its U.S. and Japanese clients to offer Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) and other fully-autonomous drone applications. Moving ahead, the company wants to continue upgrading its expertise and develop best-of-breed drones. “By integrating robotics technologies, AI, and IoT to drones, we are looking forward to creating a new epoch of intelligent robotics,” concludes Hsin.