AI (artificial intelligence) is meant to make ordinary people’s lives easier, but most current technology requires extensive specialized training to be useful. That completely defeats the purpose—says the team at MatrixSpace.
Instead, MatrixSpace’s mission is to make the emerging capabilities of AI useful to ordinary people—making machines do the hard work to keep people safe, and not the other way around.
The company, co-founded by Northeastern alum Greg Waters and associate professor Jose Martinez Lorenzo in 2019, is a spin-out housed at the Barracks Venture Creation Center on Northeastern University’s Burlington site. This past year, MatrixSpace secured $10.1M in private investor funding and was recently named a “Top Five Startup to Watch” by the Silicon Valley Review.
Photo by Canaday, Brooks
Real-time edge-based sensing with AI
Real-time edge-based sensing with AI is the ability to sense and detect objects, motion, and direction in any situation. It enables smart sensors to visualize and identify objects, their distance and speed, and collect and report that data in real-time, just like a human. This real-time data enables instant situational awareness, day or night, helping people use the available information immediately and act accordingly—not after the fact.
MatrixSpace combines this industry-leading sensing with AI edge processing and RF communication in real-time to create a major technology breakthrough with multiple vertical market applications, including the construction and utilities, defense solutions, and safety and security industries. Their goal is to connect people and smart machines in a ubiquitous way and support faster, easier data processing for all—taking up the slack where the Internet of Things (IoT) has underperformed.
Instead of having to wait for video and data to be obtained from a device, real-time decision-making, information sharing, and communication are now possible.
“Combining sensing, processing and communications with AI offers game-changing capabilities for both enterprise and government entities,” says Waters. “We’re bringing small, affordable smart sensing, and automated response to markets that have never considered it.”
AI Applications in More Industries
When most people think of AI, they probably think of autonomous drones and robots—and MatrixSpace’s technology does have applications like that.
The company’s AI platform enables users to instruct drones, robots, and other intelligent machines to perform complex tasks in many industries, making jobs safer and more productive. The platform also designs distributed autonomous systems and offers AI-enabled drones to coordinate and perform complex tasks, such as scanning a wide area, detecting hazards, dropping supplies, and recommending safe routes.
However, the thing that makes MatrixSpace different is that they are focused on bringing the power of AI to ordinary people and applying it broadly to many industries, such as security and construction.spin
MatrixSpace has developed both hardware and software to improve the functioning of smart machines and other technologies, including drones, radars, and sensors. Their technology has a multitude of applications that are transforming AI and making situations safer and more effective for people globally.
The first product the company developed is called DopplerSpace, an AI software platform that offers more acute optical sensing. The technology gives machines and their human operators the ability to see in the dark, at a distance, and in bad weather, smoke, or fog. This can be used in limitless military and civilian applications, improving safety and information-gathering abilities in all weather conditions.
Another software platform they’ve developed, called ShannonSpace, would allow a swarm of autonomous robots or drones to deploy to an area devastated by a tornado or hurricane, for example, to retrieve more accurate information about damaged structures and injured civilians. It could also be used by authorities to find weapons concealed under a person’s clothing in schools, public spaces, and large venues.
Their technologies are improving safety and security at a faster speed and a lower cost. Their technology could potentially save many lives and improve national defense.
“The opportunity to unleash the power of AI across the full range of sensing capabilities and turn it into an intelligent platform is only the beginning,” says Waters. “Our team is looking at where we can take our next steps and how we can support customer requirements today and into the future.”