Security AI for
commercial mobility.
Helping Ford ship their first piece of consumer hardware powered by AI.
Ford's commercial customers often keep valuable items such as tools in their F150 and Transit vehicles. Tool theft is a £100M problem in the UK alone, seeing an increase of 14% in 2023*.
Canopy by Ford is on a mission to change that by detecting break-ins before they happen.
We collaborated with the team at Ford helping define the product, service, and AI strategy. After the formation of a 105M$ joint venture between Ford and ADT, we supported two key initiatives.
New Material delivered a state of the art sensor-fusion threat detection AI, the industrial design, and helped bring the device to production.
Further reading
Building CUSTOM, low-power ai
We developed a fully custom, sensor-fusion AI, leveraging sound and motion to detect vehicle break-ins before they happen. It was designed with severe power constraints to continuously run at the edge, requiring us to innovate across all stages of the model development cycle.
Data collection and QA
We conducted a robust training data collection campaign with specialists simulating vehicle break-ins. to capture, annotate, and test thousands of audio and motion samples.
R&D, model architecture
We applied advanced sensor fusion and AI techniques to create high-performing binary and multi-class classifiers while significantly reducing false positives. Packaged into a state-of-the-art threat detection algorithm.
Embedded Engineering
Our embedded engineering team collaborated with top AI chip manufacturers to optimize models for low-power edge environments, enabling seamless integration into Ford’s hardware development cycle.
industrial design and packaging
We collaborated with Ford’s product team to design an intuitive casing that securely housed all components and adapted seamlessly to both trucks and vans. Additionally, we created easy to use packaging and installation instructions for frictionless user installation.
New Material has been instrumental in supporting the Canopy team through all phases of our product design and development cycle. Their deep understanding of hardware development and support with manufacturers helped us maintain the integrity of the products design all the way to our customers hands.
Sam Harris
Director of Product, Ford Secure
Industrial design
We researched, prototyped, and designed a sensor and battery unit to accommodate its ideal location and fixture within the vehicle. While accounting for it's visual language to convey intelligence and sturdiness.
Packaging
We developed a packaging system that enables first time customers to easily mount and setup the device in their vehicles with minimal support intervention.
Design for Manufacture
Our industrial design team collaborated closely with Ford’s product development team all the way to production, ensuring that the industrial design was not compromised during the manufacturing process.
