Highlandtown camera tech company tapped for Verizon 5G First Responder lab

A Highlandtown-based camera tech company was selected by Verizon for a program looking to help bring the future benefits of 5G connectivity to first responders.

ADCOR MAGnet Systems was among five companies selected for the first cohort of the 5G First Responder Lab, which will be based out of the Alley, a coworking space that brought new use to a Verizon property in D.C.

As our sister site Technical.ly DC reported, the incubator program is a partnership between Verizon and Responder Corp that’s designed to give technologists access to 5G technology that can help develop new public safety tech. More than 50 teams applied for the program. ADCOR is entering the first of a trio of three-month cohorts planned this year. The initial group also includes D.C.-based drone outfit Aerial Applications.

5G is the next — or fifth — generation of cellular communications connectivity, promising to offer faster, more reliable and more data capacity for mobile devices. It has yet to be rolled out widely, but the major carriers are working to implement infrastructure and show progress on devices that can work with such speeds.

With better connectivity also comes new kinds of capabilities for what’s available via mobile. The lab is seeking to explore that for first responders.

“5G is transformative and will bring new possibilities in technology,” Nick Nilan, director of public sector product development at Verizon, said in a statement. “The companies chosen for the 5G First Responder Lab could bring unseen, potentially life-saving innovations to public safety.”

Through the program, ADCOR is developing sensors that detect, identify and correlate information that’s shown in a 3D digital environment known as NEMESIS, a description states. The 360 optical sensors can be placed on fixed structures, vehicles moving on land, air and sea or robots and drones, and are used to create spherical video from a single-lens camera. It’s designed to provide streaming video in real-time over the internet or mobile.

Here’s a video demo that Responder Lab highlighted:

Adcor is a spinout of ADCOR Industries, a larger company that makes metal components. We previously covered another of the company’s products: a smart antenna for drones.