LynxVision selected as finalist in OpenCV AI competition

LynxVision, a team of electrical engineering students’ capstone design project has been named a finalist in the 2021 Open CV AI Competition. This year, the international competition focused on solutions solving real-world problems using spatial AI.

OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision) is an organization that provides real-time optimized libraries and hardware for computer vision and machine learning. Well-established companies like Google, Microsoft, Intel, and NVIDIA employ OpenCV to build products.

The CU Denver team’s project, “A Multi-Camera Spatial Vision Laboratory,” creates an experimental environment for computer vision projects and courses within the College of Engineering, Design and Computing. Computer vision techniques create inexpensive, effective, and non-invasive solutions to estimate the number of individuals in different physical settings for the purpose of increasing health and safety through the data collection. As part of the competition, the team is using the new OpenCV AI Kit D (OAK-D), a smart camera with neural inference and depth processing capability on board, to solve their problems.

The team used space in the North Classroom building as their experimental lab environment, giving them the opportunity to build a multi-camera, multi-room area for analysis. The project uses the provided technology to track the number of people in a specific area and provide social/physical distancing and precise location data linked to a floorplan.

As a finalist, LynxVision received an OAK-D device to implement their project, and has three months to complete it. The winners will be selected by July 12, 2021.

LynxVision is comprised of undergraduate students Huseen Al Ramzi, Patrick Bales-Parks, Jonathan Barstad, Chance Prem, Alex Quach, Amanda Rowsell, Jonathan Smith, and Connor Wilson, and graduate research assistant Julie Durbin. They are mentored by electrical engineering associate professor Dan Connors.

“I am so excited to see such high quality and such impactful projects come from our capstone teams!” said Dean Martin Dunn.  “The student’s experiences and accomplishments here are just what are needed to position them for a life of success…Very well done and good luck to the team in the finals!”