L&T Semiconductor to Develop SoCs for CCTV Cameras, Partners with CP Plus

L&T Semiconductor Technologies Limited (LTSCT) has recently signed a Master Collaboration Agreement (MCA) with Aditya Infotech Limited to develop and supply state-of-the-art systems-on-chip (SoC) and other system solutions for CCTV cameras.

Aditya Infotech is the maker of the popular CP Plus branded CCTV cameras. This partnership aims to boost both "Make in India" and "design in India" initiatives, strengthening the trusted supply chain in line with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology's (MeitY) policies. The collaboration will focus on developing high-performance SoCs tailored to the Indian surveillance camera market while ensuring data security.

To recall, LTSCT has recently announced that it is acquiring SiliConch Systems for ₹183 crore to enhance its fabless semiconductor business.

The partnership between LTSCT and CP Plus underscores a shared commitment to maximising indigenous semiconductors content in Surveillance Camera solutions, adhering to security and regulatory standards set by MeitY, and creating competitive tech products for global markets.

LTSCT Chief Executive Mr Sandeep Kumar said that the collaboration will focus on developing high-performance SoCs tailored to Indian Surveillance Camera market along with a commitment to ensure data security. “We will leverage LTSCT's prowess in semiconductor technology solutions and CP Plus's extensive market insights and manufacturing expertise to create a lasting legacy of designed-and-made in India tech products”, he said.

Aditya Infotech MD Mr Aditya Khemka complemented saying: “The Indian surveillance and security camera technologies are poised to achieve substantial penetration, which will not only contribute to India's GDP but also create jobs in this sector. The CP Plus partnership with LTSCT aims to develop indigenous Indian IP SoCs & system solutions and a comprehensive range of advanced AI IP CCTV products both for India and the global market. We are thrilled to collaborate with LTSCT and CP Plus stands committed to producing IP CCTV products using these SoCs, while adhering to the highest standards of data and cyber security.”

L&T Semiconductor Technologies Ltd. (LTSCT), a fully owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro, is a fabless Semiconductor multinational product company – focused on designing & delivering innovative solutions and comprehensive suite of services to its Global Customers. It provides Semiconductor Devices, Solutions and Technology partnership by helping customers realize energy efficient, high-performance systems to benefit from data, electrification and software defined technology trends. LTSCT has its R&D centers in Bangalore, Delhi & Chennai and Product Engineering & Sales divisions in Austin, Munich and Tokyo.

CP PLUS, India’s No. 1 CCTV Brand, expands with World’s Largest & State-of-the-Art, Futuristic Manufacturing Facility in Andhra Pradesh

In just 5 years of local manufacturing under the Make-in-India initiative, CP PLUS has climbed up amongst the TOP 3 Largest Manufacturers of Surveillance Equipment globally!

CP PLUS, India's leading CCTV brand, began producing surveillance devices locally in India in its Manufacturing facility in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh 5 years ago. And since then, the brand has enhanced its manufacturing capabilities to reach the plant's maximum production capacity of 1Mn units a month.

Now to meet the growing demand, CP PLUS has put up another manufacturing unit in Kadapa District, Andhra Pradesh. With the production commencing in Q2, 2022-23, this new facility will have 3 times the production capability vis-à-vis the existing capacity i.e. 3Mn Surveillance units per month, which will make it the World’s Largest Manufacturing Unit for Surveillance Products, outside China and 3rd largest in the entire world when including China.

The CP PLUS manufacturing facility Kadappa in the state of Andhra Pradesh has been integrated with the world’s latest Fuji-made state-of-the-art technology SMT Lines and semi-Robotic Assembly & packaging Lines. All production area has been designed with ESD flooring, and a dust-free and air-conditioned environment to achieve the world’s best quality of products.

This manufacturing facility has a wide range of Reliability Test Equipment to ensure High quality of products manufactured and also to qualify for various certifications required in Tenders and by Govt. of India organizations like RDSO, AAI, PWD, Indian Navy etc.

Mr. Aditya Khemka, Managing Director of CP PLUS expressed his intentions to further expand the production capacities of manifolds in the future. “Backed by our R&D proficiency, we have plans in action to further augment our capabilities and become many times larger than the current size to produce 6 Mn units per month in near future to make our brand more and more Atmanirbhar in order to accomplish our PM’s dream and to make India truly self-reliant.

In addition, we have 10 acres of additional land for which we have firm plans to develop facilities for Backward Integration in the CCTV domain. CCTV & Recorders’ components like Housing, Cables, and Adapters among the others are placed in the first phase of manufacturing which will lead to an actual increase in Local Content in
manufacturing and go another mile in the localization and indigenization process of CCTV manufacturing in India!

With visible Govt. support, we do foresee Exports of Surveillance products in near future from this stupendous production facility."

All these areas of high-volume production, Backward Integration & Exports will attribute to a larger employment generation for the country, especially for Women as the brand's current workforce consists of 90% of female workers.

Manufacturing for other domestic and international brands, CP Plus has also become the largest Indian OEM and ODM as well, giving strong competition to Chinese companies and reaching the leading spot in the entire surveillance industry.

CP PLUS is a pioneer Indian brand responsible for leading the security and surveillance industry in the country for many years now. Since its very beginning, CP PLUS has dominated the CCTV industry by introducing affordable solutions and a reliable sense of security to the general public and creating awareness about enhancing public safety. Now, the brand’s name itself has become a synonym for CCTV in many parts of the country.

Being a leading brand in the surveillance industry, CP PLUS has successfully conducted hundreds of government projects, securing railway and police stations, air and sea ports, government institutions, public roads, and even entire smart cities.

Currently, CP PLUS is also in talks with the Government of India to introduce the PLI scheme for the Surveillance industry and also about amendments to the Public Safety Act to further improve Electronics Security for India and its public.

The growth and popularity CP PLUS has witnessed every step of the way successfully placed the brand at the forefront of the surveillance industry, so much so that now CP PLUS is not just India’s No. 1 surveillance equipment manufacturer but also has the largest production facility for security and surveillance products anywhere outside of China in the whole world.

Video Analytics Platform, Wobot Raises pre-series A Funding from Sequoia India

The AI-powered computer vision technology for CCTVs helps make monitoring of SOPs productive and automated for users across sectors 

Wobot Intelligence, an AI-powered video analytics platform has raised pre-series A from Sequoia India. Wobot’s tool connects to any existing CCTV or other forms of cameras and helps monitor process compliance while detecting and tracking anomalies in an organization’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). It offers video analytics for SOPs which include hygiene, safety, productivity, and customer experience to customers across industries. 

Founded by Adit Chhabra, Tapan Dixit, and Tanay Dixit, Wobot will use the funds for global expansion and strengthening its proprietary technology platform. It will also help the company make some key executive appointments, expand its sales and marketing efforts as well as broaden and accelerate product development to cater to more use cases and customers. 

CCTVs are common in factories, restaurants, workplaces, and several other sectors but are monitored ineffectively by humans in a big control room with multiple monitors. The vast amount of this data is unused and does not give any meaningful or actionable insight. Wobot is resolving this big gap with ‘smarter video analytics solutions that leverage deep learning to achieve more productive and automated monitoring. These solutions can be personalized and implemented across industries such as hospitality, manufacturing, pharma and retail among others.

Adit Chhabra, co-founder and CEO of Wobot said, “Wobot’s vision has always been to create a transparent and seamless workplace with 100% process compliance where the camera acts as a third eye and provides continuous feedback for employees on the job. This does not necessarily mean only pointing out violations but also giving a pat on the back for following the right SOPs and adhering to compliances." 

The market for CCTV installations was estimated to grow at a CAGR of around 11% YoY globally pre-Covid-19. It will grow even faster in the post-Covid-19 era. Covid-19 era has made businesses realise the value proposition of remote monitoring. Pre Covid-19, hygiene and safety of the workforce was a good-to-have now, it is a must have and companies are appreciating the importance of automation. For any future business continuity plans, video analytics will play a huge role and Wobot is well-positioned to take advantage of this opportunity”, he added.  

Ashish Agrawal, Principal, Sequoia Capital India LLP said, “Computer vision has seen tremendous advances in recent years, resulting in widespread adoption for varied enterprise needs. This includes process compliance in areas such as security, manufacturing, and retail. Increased concern for hygiene and safety post-Covid-19 has heightened the importance of process compliance. Sequoia India is excited to partner with the Wobot team as they build a global SaaS business serving this enterprise need.”

How does it work?

Wobot employs deep learning techniques to detect any change in SOPs, automatically list them, and make them trackable for relevant stakeholders. Once plugged into an existing camera, this AI then detects people, objects, and activities. Basis an industry or company’s selected use cases, it raises alerts of any deviation from those processes. The alerts are received by the supervisor with a short clip for immediate and effective action. 

Examples of use cases; 

• In a kitchen - it can detect use of hairnet, gloves and 20-second hand wash compliance.
• At a construction site - It can detect the use of safety jackets, helmets and worker productivity
• In a manufacturing plant- It can Detect loading/unloading activity and duration or a specific task on an assembly line.
• In a hospital - It can detect PPE and hand wash compliance
• In a pharma lab - It can detect PPE gowning process
• In a restaurant - It can detect cleaning activity as well as order/wait times 
• In stores - It can detect customer service within a time limit or sanitisation activity.

Today, Wobot has become a cost-effective and autonomous way of monitoring hygiene, safety, productivity, and customer experience across various organizations. Wobot is a robust team of 60+ and has completed 10,000+ installations for customers including Kitopi, CultFit, Rebel Foods, Travel Food Services, EatFit, Blue Tokai, Apparel Group, Max Estates & Housing and more. 

In 2018, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) signed up with Wobot to monitor the food production process across its several base kitchens. Subsequently Wobot intelligence raised a seed round of funding from Titan Capital too. 

Since then Wobot has been continuously partnering up with clients across the country, Middle East and South East Asia where it aims to expand presence going forward. Further as the next phase of growth, Wobot aims to enter the US market as well as introduce more use cases for the healthcare and manufacturing sectors.

About Wobot:

Wobot.ai enables vision-based process compliance by plugging its AI-first SaaS tool into existing CCTV cameras. It has helped organizations in Food, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Retail, and Pharma to reduce the cost of monitoring, risk of non-compliance, and improve customer NPS. Customers can choose from industry-specific process compliance modules like hygiene, workforce/workplace safety, customer SOPs, and more. This allows for existing cameras to automatically list and deliver deviations to relevant stakeholders as well as provide a dashboard with insights. Wobot currently provides solutions to several organizations like IRCTC, Rebel Foods, CureFit, Max, Kitopi, and Smartworks among others.