OCE funding supports AI-enabled drone for Ontario highways

A group of industry players working with Univ of Toronto has received funding to develop a drone system enabled with artificial intelligence to help in traffic management on Ontario’s highways. The group, which includes The Sky Guys, NVIDIA Corp and IBM, received $750,000 over two years through the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE). Working with the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO), the group will develop a solution to improve monitoring of high-occupancy vehicle/high-occupancy toll (HOV/HOT) lanes in the province's 400-series highways. The project, titled "Long-Range AI-Enabled Unmanned Aerial System for Highway Traffic Enforcement with Future Road Applications,” is a response to the Vehicle Occupancy Detection Problem Statement under the Small Business Innovation Challenge (SBIC) program of the OCE. OCE president and CEO Tom Corr says the SBIC program will support smaller Ontario-based, technology-driven firms to develop and test innovative technology solutions for public sector challenges. The funding will allow The Sky Guys to test AI-equipped drones for highway enforcement and management.