Smart cameras as embedded

systems

presented by
preethi.m.v
• Smart cameras are equipped with a high-
performance onboard computing and
communication infrastructure, combining
in a single embedded device
– video sensing
– processing
– communications
• Networks of embedded cameras can
potentially support more complex and
challenging applications:
_Surveillance
– Tracking
– Motion analysis
 Evolution
• “From Analog to Digital Cameras”:
• 1st generation surveillance: analog equipment
(closed circuit TV cameras transmitted video
signal over analog lines)
• 2nd generation: digital back-end components;
allow real time automated analysis of incoming
data
• 3rd generation: complete digital transformation;
video converted in digital domain at the camera
and transmitted via a computer network;
cameras can also compress video to save
bandwidth
• 4th generation: intelligent cameras; perform low-level
image processing operations on the captured frames
onboard to improve video compression and intelligent
host efficiency
– however most of the processing is done at a central unit

• But “smart cameras”

– directly perform highly sophisticated video analysis
– video sensing
– video processing
– communication
– designed as reconfigurable and flexible processing nodes with
self-reconfiguration, self-monitoring, and self diagnosis
capabilities.
• Shift from a central to a distributed control
surveillance system
– Increase the surveillance system’s functionality,
availability, and autonomy
– Can react autonomously to changes in the system’s
environment
– Can detected events in the monitored scenes.

• A static surveillance system configuration is no

longer feasible!
• Sensing unit
– Monochrome CMOS image sensor
– delivers images with VGA resolution at up to 30 fps
– transfers images via a first-in, first-out (FIFO) memory to the PU
• Processing unit (PU)
– Up to 10 Texas Instruments TMS320C64x DSPs
• can deliver an aggregate performance of up to 80 GIPS while keeping the power
consumption low
– PCI bus couples the DSPs and connects them to the network processor
• Communication unit
– network processor: Intel XScale IXP425
– establishes the connection between the processing and communication units
– controls internal and external communication
– currently supports two interfaces for IP-based external communication:
– Wired Ethernet
– wireless Global System for Mobile Communications/general packet radio service (GSM/GPRS)
• Commercial off the shelf hardware
components to test and evaluate the video
surveillance system

• 1 cam consists of:

– network processor
– several DSPs
– a CMOS image sensor
• Multicamera object-tracking application
• Multicamera system instantiates only a single tracker (agent) task
• The agent follows the tracked object migrating to the SmartCam that should
next observe the object
• Tracking agent based on a Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi feature tracker
• Main advantage is its short initialization time
– Applicable for multicamera object tracking by mobile agents
– Tracking agents control the handover process, using predefined migration regions
– When the tracked object enters a migration region, the tracker initiates handover to
the next SmartCam
– Each migration region assigned to one or more possible next SmartCams
– Motion vectors help distinguish among several SmartCams assigned to the same
migration migration region
– Motion vectors check whether the object moves in the correct direction
– A master-slave approach for the tracked object handover

• Tracking agent’s migration between SmartCams takes up to 1 second

• Task-allocation system’s setup time—approximately 190 milliseconds
 Conclusions
• Keys to successful deployment of smart
cameras are:
– the integration of sensing, computing, and
communication in a small, power-aware
embedded device
– the availability of high-level image/video
processing algorithms
• System usage:
– traffic surveillance
– detection of stationary vehicles
– detection of wrong-way drivers
– computation of average speed,lane occupancy