IVS Briefs
IVS / Edge AI Research Brief
Overall assessment
Signal level
High on ALPR politics/budget. Medium on silicon (S100P and ARK Pi are real boards; neither is a ship-now NVR). Weekend had almost no VMS SKU.
Notable trends
- State treasuries are now a kill switch (Abbott) while other states still fund cameras (Flock lobbied WI for grants).
- Networked vs mobile LPR is becoming the statutory split (Laughlin).
- DeFlock tally 90 → 120+ in a week.
- Hawley put false-positive rates and offshore labeling on the Senate record.
- Edge-box race continues: Qualcomm IMSDK / Orin Nano 2 / now a 128 TOPS GMSL kit — NDAA origin is the filter, not TOPS.
Gaps
No peer-reviewed IVS paper with a deployment hook. No new Axis/Genetec/Milestone camera SKU. Abbott order’s effective date and already-awarded grants still fuzzy. S100P’s country-of-origin / NDAA status not documented in the CNX write-up.
Signals (6)
- 1
Key point
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) directed state agencies to stop spending on Flock cameras. Spokesman Andrew Mahaleris: most city money is federal; “to the extent any funding comes from Texas agencies, those funds cannot be used for Flock.” Does not force cities to cancel. Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority (board mostly Abbott-appointed) put ≥$30M into the network since 2023 via a $1 auto-insurance fee sold as catalytic-converter theft money — ≥3,200 cameras; DPS installing ~1,200 on a 3-year / $15.9M MVCPA contract. Dallas PD: >670 cameras in the city. Abbott on radio: a “crackdown” as cities cancel. Cited Lufkin officer indicted on 100 felony counts for searching an ex. Order landed hours before a Texas Tribune investigation of the grant machine. Dem gubernatorial rival Gina Hinojosa had already attacked Abbott for ~10,000 cameras tracking Texans. Rep. Keith Self (R) still on the “no surveillance state” side.
Why it matters
First state-budget kill switch on a named ALPR vendor. Integrators in Texas: existing poles stay up unless the city walks; new state-grant SKUs are dead. Watch copycats (FL already has DeSantis rhetoric). MVCPA / insurance-fee grants are the playbook other states will audit next.
- 2
Key point
Sen. Doug Mastriano (R): limit ALPR to stolen cars, missing/endangered, manhunts, vehicles tied to a specific investigation, articulable threats, warrants — not “photograph everyone.” Sen. Lisa Boscola (D): criminalize personal/unauthorized ALPR access (after WaPo’s ≥50 officer-misuse cases). Sen. Dan Laughlin (R-Erie): prohibit networked ALPR that auto-builds a database of every passerby; vehicle-mounted readers still OK. House: Rep. Tarik Khan (D) + 7 cosponsors (incl. 1 R) — private right of action + AG/DA civil enforcement. PA footprint: EFF Atlas >450 LE agencies; crowdsourced ~2,600 ALPRs. New Castle PD logs: >11M outside-agency searches / 3 years vs ~10k local; >80% of searches had no case number. Chambersburg PD (Motorola, not Flock): 3 fixed + 6 mobile, >500 cases since 2016; hit ≠ probable cause. NCSL: ≥16 states already limit ALPR.
Why it matters
Laughlin’s bill is the product-shaping one: it would legalize dashcam/patrol LPR and kill Flock-style national poles. If it moves, expect a split SKU — mobile OK / networked fixed banned — and RFPs that demand case-number or no query.
- 3
Key point
~$1.4M federal since 2024 (peak quarter $220k Apr–Jun 2026) + ≥$1M state in 34 states (undercount: AZ/AL don’t disclose retainers). Lobbyists include Trump-transition comms director Bryan Lanza. Agenda inferred: block warrant rules and cross-jurisdiction limits that would break the network. CA: $180k since Jan 2025; only one ALPR-guardrail bill passed both chambers — Newsom vetoed it (30-day purge of non-hits, audits, case numbers, no unauthorized sharing). MA $169k, WI $102k (on grant bills to buy ALPRs). Camera lease $2,500–$3,000/yr; some university deals ~$750k, city/county >$1M. DeFlock tracker: >120 agencies cancelled/suspended/rejected/deactivated since Jan 2025 (was >90 last week). Axon ~$5.3M federal lobbying since 2024; Motorola ~$5M — not broken out by ALPR line. UNC’s Torin Monahan: Flock also uses scans to train proprietary models; public doesn’t know what’s in them. Diversifying into drones, gunshot detection, city “safety dashboards.”
Why it matters
The network is the product. Lobbying is cheap vs a $1M city contract. WI grant-lobbying means Flock is still trying to get the state to pay while Abbott is cutting the opposite check. Model-training on municipal video is the clause to strike in 2027 RFPs.
- 4
Hawley: 20 billion plate snapshots a month, no federal statute, and the audit didn’t catch Milwaukee
Key point
Investigation already opened 08-26; op-ed adds numbers: >120,000 cameras, ~20 billion vehicle snapshots/month, no Act of Congress on collection/retention/sale. St. Charles County, MO cancelled after a civilian employee ran personal searches. Milwaukee: officer searched an ex 124× and her former boyfriend 55× with justification “investigation” — caught by a private citizen on a public lookup site, not Flock’s audit. False positives: Florida woman 13 days in jail (wrong person); LA dropped Flock after 161 drivers stopped on bad stolen-car flags; another CA PD found 71% of alerts wrong. Data questions: licensing/sale, storage abroad, Philippines gig workers classifying camera data. SCOTUS “comprehensive record of movements” privacy language invoked. Wants rules that outlast CEOs and apply to every vendor.
Why it matters
The Senate file now has accuracy and offshore-labeling in it, not just stalking. Expect RFPs to demand independent false-positive rates and no non-US human review of video. “Audit logs” that a citizen beats are not a control.
- 5
Key point
Robotics SBC around S100P: 6× Cortex-A78AE @ 2.0 GHz + 4× Cortex-R52+ MCU (lockstep/split-lock), Nash BPU 128 TOPS INT8, Mali-G78AE, 24 GB LPDDR5, 64 GB eMMC, 3× 4-lane MIPI CSI-2. Optional camera board: 2× MIPI + 4× GMSL2 (MAX96712, Fakra-Mini). Ubuntu 22.04 / Linux 6.1, TogetherROS.Bot (ROS 2 Humble), rdk_model_zoo with YOLO via OpenExplorer INT8. Kit $899 (DFRobot) / $999 (Waveshare). Vs Orin NX 16GB: more RAM and claimed TOPS, no CUDA/TensorRT/Isaac — proprietary .hbm models. 0–45 °C, 12–20 V.
Why it matters
A GMSL + YOLO edge box under $1k is the BOM integrators ask for after Qualcomm IMSDK / Orin Nano 2. NDAA/China-origin risk is the gate (D-Robotics / Shenzhen heritage). Treat as a lab board unless the SoM is clearly TAA/NDAA-clean. Software lock-in is the real cost vs Jetson.
Source
CNX Software - 6
Key point
ARK Electronics (already ships NDAA Jetson Orin NX/Nano bundles) launches a ~55×40 mm CM5 carrier: 2× Raspberry Pi 5 CSI, dual 100 Mbps Ethernet (on-board switch), USB 3 Type-C, PCIe FFC, built in the USA / NDAA. Board $335; bundle with CM5 Lite 2 GB + 64 GB NDAA microSD $475. ARK OS dashboard. Follows their 2024 NDAA Jetson packs. Not a Hailo/Orin TOPS box — a compliant camera-front-end.
Why it matters
SLED/DoD-adjacent drone and perimeter kits that cannot touch Shenzhen SBCs. Pair with Hailo-8L (ARK/others already sell a $3,640 Pi 5 + Hailo “AI surveillance station”) when the RFP says NDAA line 1. Cheap CM5 carriers from Waveshare are not this SKU.
Source
CNX Software