Amazon recently announced the general availability of its computer vision (CV) appliance, the AWS (Amazon Web Services) Panorama. The AWS Panorama Appliance is a machine learning appliance and software development kit (SDK) that allows bringing computer vision to on-premises cameras to make predictions locally with high accuracy and low latency.

Using the appliance, one can automate tasks that traditionally require human inspection to improve visibility into potential issues such as evaluating manufacturing quality, identifying bottlenecks in industrial processes, and monitoring workplace security even in environments with limited or no internet connectivity. The software development kit allows camera manufacturers to bring equivalent capabilities directly inside their IP camera.

“Organisations across all industries like construction, hospitality, industrial, logistics, retail, transportation, and more are always keen to improve their operations and reduce costs. Computer vision offers a valuable opportunity to achieve these goals, but companies are often inhibited by a range of factors, including the complexity of the technology, limited internet connectivity, latency, and inadequacy of existing hardware. We built the Panorama Appliance to help remove these barriers so our customers can take advantage of existing on-premises cameras and accelerate inspection tasks, reduce operational complexity, and improve consumer experiences through computer vision,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of Amazon machine learning at AWS. 

The appliance is an edge device, so it runs applications locally on optimised hardware instead of sending images to the AWS Cloud for processing. The appliance only requires an internet connection to report its status, upload logs, get software updates and deployments.

Amazon says that the Panorama Appliance is already being used by companies, including Accenture, Deloitte, and Sony.  

AWS Panorama supports models built with Apache MXNet, DarkNet, GluonCV, Keras, ONNX, PyTorch, TensorFlow, and TensorFlow Lite. Integrated with Amazon SageMaker, Amazon’s own service for building machine learning models, the Panorama Appliance can be updated and deployed with new computer vision models. Companies who opt not to create their own models can choose from solutions offered by Deloitte, TaskWatch, Vistry, Sony, Accenture, and other Amazon partners. The Panorama Appliance is now available for sale through Amazon’s AWS Elemental service in the US, Canada, the UK, and the EU.