Iris ALPR Camera
Project
Neology, a market leader in tolling and mobility solutions, who processes over 200 million tolling transactions per year, acquired PIPS Technology as part of an expansion strategy into lateral markets. Having built the world’s first traffic camera, PIPS Technology has deep roots in automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras, used in traffic enforcement, congestion charging and resolution of Amber alerts. Neology turned to 2020 Design to integrate the IRIS ALPR camera into their product line and optimize the enclosure design in the process.
Contribution
• Integrated existing functional components using modern industrial design
• Reduced system downtime through improved usability for installation and service
• Enabled early stakeholder feedback using high fidelity product visualization
• Optimized enclosure characteristics for passive cooling and reduced solar load
• Reduced weight through part interface tuning and extrusion profile refinement
• Maintained important design features by iterating tooling designs with suppliers
• Coordinated prototyping and supplier selection, and set the stage for production
Results
• Delivered an integrated modern product design
• Successful market introduction
• Became Neology’s most successful product line within a year of launch
Concept Generation
Neology’s visual brand language for product design is based on modernist principles of minimal forms and clean lines. While products of this type appear simple, that simplicity is the result of significant effort to manage and integrate the complexity beneath the surface.
The IRIS camera is no different - it’s a complex piece of equipment with numerous engineering constraints and performance requirements.
Creating this integrated industrial design involved:
• Establishing product brand positioning with executive leadership
• Evaluating potential form factors given existing internal components
• Sketching a variety of concepts to explore product aesthetics
• 3D CAD modeling of leading candidates for detailed evaluation
• Iterating the design in context with the product’s full complexity
• Staying true to the design vision in the process
Usability
Stationary ALPR cameras are often mounted on gantry structures above highway lanes and intersections that are difficult to access. Installation and service involve closure of traffic lanes and use of elevated bucket trucks or “cherry pickers”, while technicians work under pressure to minimize costly downtime.
Under these circumstances, small adjustments to improve usability make a big difference by reducing cognitive load and preventing errors. Usability and service access was improved by:
• Replacing a loose removable cover with a hinged access door
• Preventing the need to disconnect cabling during service
• Using captive hardware to prevent dropped screws
• Adding clear and high contrast labeling
Product Visualization
Once initial 3D CAD assets were created, we put them to work to create high fidelity CGI product visualizations. These enabled detailed exploration of color, material and finish options to refine the design while soliciting feedback and input from stakeholders early in the development process.
Functioning as virtual prototypes, these visualizations allowed for rapid iteration of:
• Product form, scale and proportion
• Surface details and textures
• Applied graphics
High resolution assets of the finalized design also supported cross-channel sales and marketing efforts.
Thermal Performance
Operating the IRIS camera’s complex electronics in a sealed outdoor enclosure posed a thermal design challenge. Since active cooling was undesirable from a reliability standpoint, passive cooling became a central aspect of the enclosure design.
Thermal performance was managed by:
• Optimizing an external cover to reduce solar heat gain
• Adding new conductive pathways for key electronic components
• Increasing external surface area for optimized natural convection
Weight Reduction
The IRIS camera introduced several new features, requiring additional components and a larger form factor than previous generations of product. This required new approaches to part designs and interfaces to prevent a proportional increase in product weight.
By carefully tuning the part-to-part interfaces of the enclosure, we were able to:
• Reduce the wall thickness of a major extruded component
• Integrate assembly features into the tooled profile design
• Reduce product weight by 1 kg
Design for Manufacturing
Maintaining the industrial design intent through to the final components required creative engineering and tooling design.
Our deep understanding of manufacturing processes allowed us to:
• Effectively communicate with suppliers and understand their needs during manufacturing
• Create and iterate tooling designs for rotational molding while maintaining important design features
• Identify a unique process to create an extremely durable multi-color exterior cover
Project Management
We coordinated the following aspects of this complex product development project:
Facilitated rapid prototyping across numerous remote suppliers
• Assisted with supplier selection for key components
• Created assets to track and manage 350+ processes and components for pre-production build of 30 units
• Set the stage for subsequent full production runs
Feedback
"Neology has worked with Julian for many years. He has designed and improved many of our best in class technology products for law enforcement and tolling. He is creative, innovative, professional and great to work with. Highly recommended."
Francisco Martinez de Velasco
CEO, Neology, Inc.
CEO, Neology, Inc.
