JP2009169540A - Monitoring system and security management system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide technology allowing materialization of higher security than the case that a home security system of each house independently operates. <P>SOLUTION: This monitoring system includes the home security system, vehicles, and a security management system. When abnormality occurs in the house, the security management system instructs the vehicle during traveling on the periphery of the house about photographing and transmission of an image. When a suspicious person can be specified from the image photographed in the house wherein the abnormality occurs, the suspicious person is detected from the image transmitted from the peripheral vehicle or the house, and the photographing of the image is instructed to the peripheral vehicle and the house with a detection position as the center when the suspicious person is detected to also preferably chase the suspicious person. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a monitoring system and a security management system capable of collecting images in cooperation with the vicinity of an abnormality occurrence site when an abnormality such as a third party intrusion occurs in a house.

  In recent years, introduction of home security systems for general houses has been progressing. The home security system installed in each house is connected to the security company via a communication line. When an abnormality such as an intruder in the house is detected, the security company is notified of the abnormality using the communication line. When the security company receives such an abnormality notification, the security company deploys security guards and the like. In addition, video shot by a security camera that is a part of the home security system will be used later as investigation materials.

Patent Document 1 discloses a technique for ensuring the security of the surrounding area by not only monitoring individual houses using such a home security system but also linking the home security systems installed in the surrounding houses. Is disclosed. According to this technology, when an abnormality is detected in a certain house, the abnormality is notified not only to the security company but also to surrounding houses. The home security system of the surrounding house that has been notified of the abnormality raises the security level or starts recording the video captured by the camera on the recording device. In this way, security can be ensured in the entire region by linking home security systems individually introduced to each house.
JP 2007-257113 A

  An object of the present invention is to achieve higher security than when the home security system of each house operates alone.

  In order to achieve the above object, a monitoring system according to the present invention comprises a home security system installed in a house, an in-vehicle system installed in a vehicle, a home security system, and a security management system communicable with the in-vehicle system. Is done.

  A home security system set in a house includes at least detection means capable of detecting an abnormality such as an intrusion of a third party and photographing means capable of photographing a moving image (a continuous still image at a predetermined interval). It is preferable to include. The home security system and the security management system can communicate with each other via a telephone line, a dedicated line, ADSL, wireless communication, and the like. Houses include houses such as detached houses and apartment houses, as well as stores, factories, warehouses and other buildings.

  The in-vehicle system includes position information acquisition means for acquiring position information of the own vehicle, position information notification means for notifying the position information of the own vehicle to the security management system, and photographing means for taking an image. The in-vehicle system has a wireless communication function, and can communicate with the security management system directly or via an access point such as a roadside device.

  Since the in-vehicle system's position information acquired by the position information acquisition means is notified to the security management system by the position information notification means, the security management system can manage (understand) the traveling position of the vehicle.

  The home security system has detection means for detecting an abnormality and abnormality notification means for notifying the occurrence of the abnormality to the security management system. The security management system includes a warning instruction unit that instructs the vehicle located near the house where the abnormality has occurred to instruct image capturing and transmission when receiving the notification of the occurrence of the abnormality.

  As described above, in the monitoring system according to the present invention, the home security system and the vehicle can be linked to perform video recording on the vehicle located near the house where the abnormality has occurred. As a result, it is possible to obtain an image in which a suspicious person or the like is photographed with a higher probability than when video recording is performed with a home-only home security system, and high security can be realized.

  Further, the warning instruction means of the security management system according to the present invention notifies the home security system installed in a neighboring house of the house where the abnormality has occurred, and instructs the photographing and transmission of an image while the abnormality has occurred. Is preferred. As a result, the video is recorded even in the neighboring house, and the probability that a suspicious person or the like obtains an image is further increased. Moreover, it is preferable that the home security system of the neighboring house notified of the occurrence of the abnormality warns the resident of the abnormality or raises the alert level. This not only increases the security of each house alone, but also improves the security of the entire region.

  In addition, the communication function of the in-vehicle system is generally limited in transmission speed, and it is difficult to transmit moving images in real time. Therefore, it is preferable that the in-vehicle system transmits an image with reduced image quality (data capacity) in order to transmit the image in real time. For this reason, the in-vehicle system further includes an image storage unit that stores the captured image. When instructed to capture and transmit an image from the warning instruction unit of the security management system, the in-vehicle system imaging unit The moving image is shot at the frame rate and resolution, and the shot image is stored in the image storage means. At the same time, it is preferable to transmit a moving image (low-definition image) with a reduced data rate by reducing the frame rate and / or resolution to the security management system in real time. In addition, it is preferable that the stored high-definition image is transmitted to the security management system after shooting is stopped. As a result, even if the transmission capacity of the in-vehicle system is small, images can be provided in real time, and image data with a large amount of data can be transmitted over time, which is useful for later investigations. Can be made.

  In the monitoring system according to the present invention, when a suspicious person is found from an image transmitted from a vehicle or the like, it is preferable to further take an image near the place where the suspicious person is found. Specifically, it has means for identifying a suspicious person from an image taken in a home security system that has detected an abnormality, and means for judging whether or not there is a suspicious person specified in an image transmitted from a vehicle. . Further, when there is a suspicious person in the image transmitted from the vehicle, the warning instruction means preferably instructs the vehicle near the position of the vehicle to take and transmit the image. In this way, when the suspicious person runs away (moves), the vehicle on the escape route will take an image, and the probability that the suspicious person obtains the captured image is improved. The escape route (movement route) can be specified.

  The present invention can be understood as a monitoring system having at least a part of the above means. Moreover, this invention can be grasped | ascertained as a home security system, a vehicle-mounted system, or a security management system which has at least one part of the said means. The present invention can also be understood as a video monitoring method including at least a part of the above processing, or a program for realizing the method. Each of the above means and processes can be combined with each other as much as possible to constitute the present invention.

  For example, a security management system as one aspect of the present invention is a security management system capable of communicating with a home security system installed in a house, the communication means for communicating with an in-vehicle system mounted on a vehicle, Based on the position information transmitted from the in-vehicle system, vehicle position management means for managing the traveling position of the vehicle, and when the occurrence of an abnormality is notified from the home security system, the home security system is installed. And vigilance instruction means for instructing a vehicle located nearby to capture and transmit an image.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to achieve higher security than when the home security system of each house operates alone.

  Exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

(First embodiment)
<System configuration>
FIG. 1 shows a system configuration of a monitoring system according to the present embodiment. As shown in the figure, this monitoring system includes a plurality of houses 1, a plurality of vehicles 2, and a security management system 3.

  The house 1 includes a security sensor 12, a camera 13, a voice / image terminal 14, and a home gateway 11 that controls these as a home security system. The security sensor 12 is a door sensor or a window opening / closing sensor attached to an entrance or a window to detect an intruder, a human body detection sensor installed in a room, or the like. The camera 13 captures an image around the house. In some cases, two or more security sensors 12 and cameras 13 are installed. The security sensor 12 and the camera 13 do not need to be separate devices, and the camera 13 may be built in the camera 13 in some cases.

  The shooting mode of the camera 13 is a low-definition mode that captures images (hereinafter referred to as low-definition images) at a low resolution and a low frame rate, and an image (hereinafter referred to as high-definition images) at a high resolution and a high frame rate. There are two modes of high definition mode. The camera 13 normally operates in the low-definition mode, always takes a low-definition image, and transmits it to the home service center 4.

  When an abnormality such as an intrusion by a third party occurs, the audio / image terminal 4 emits a warning sound to notify the resident in the house of the abnormality, or reproduces a video taken by the camera 13 It is a terminal. The home security system may also include a threatening device (not shown) that emits a warning sound or light to threaten an intruder.

  Each device in the home security system is communicably connected to the home gateway 11 and can be controlled by the home gateway 11. Each device in the home security system can communicate with the home service center 4 via the home gateway 11. Communication between the home gateway 11 and the home service center 4 is performed by a wired line such as a telephone line, an ADSL line, a cable line, or wireless communication. Communication between the two is connected by a broadband network, and a high-definition image captured by the camera 13 can also be transmitted in real time.

The home service center 4 includes a transmission / reception unit 41, a house position management unit 42, and a warning instruction unit 43. The home service center 4 can communicate with each house and the probe center 5 via the transmission / reception unit 41. The house position management unit 42 stores position information of each house 1, such as latitude / longitude information and area information. When an abnormality occurs in a certain house, the alert instruction unit 43 instructs the surrounding houses to be alert. Further, the warning instruction unit 43 notifies the probe center 5 that an abnormality has occurred via the transmission / reception unit 41 so that a warning instruction can be issued to a vehicle traveling in the surrounding area on the probe center 5 side.

  In FIG. 1, only the minimum functions necessary for the present embodiment are shown as functions of the home service center 4. In addition to the above, the home service center 4 may include an image reproducing device that reproduces a low-definition image constantly transmitted from each house 1 and is monitored by a supervisor. Further, it may include a guard arrangement device for dispatching guards when an abnormality occurs.

The vehicle 2 includes an in-vehicle device 21, a camera 24, and a GPS device 25. The in-vehicle device 21 includes an image storage unit 22 and a transmission / reception unit 23. The image storage unit 22 stores images taken by the camera 24. The transmission / reception unit 23 communicates with the probe center 5 by wireless communication. Various methods can be adopted as a wireless communication method used by the transmission / reception unit 23. The transceiver 23 is, for example, DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communication), IEEE
A wireless LAN such as E802.11a / b / g / n, IEEE802.16e (mobile WiMax), IEEE802.20, or the like can be used. In the communication between the transmission / reception unit 23 and the probe center 5, all communication paths may be wireless communication, or a wired communication path may be interposed in part.

  The camera 24 is a camera that captures a video (moving image) outside the vehicle. The image taken by the camera 24 is a high-resolution image (high-definition image) at a relatively high frame rate. Since the transmission / reception unit 23 of the in-vehicle device 21 does not have a network bandwidth for transmitting this high-definition image in real time, the in-vehicle device 21 stores the moving image captured by the camera 24 in the image storage unit 22 and takes time later. Are transmitted to the probe center 5. The in-vehicle device 21 includes a data capacity reduction unit 26 that reduces the data amount by reducing the number of frames or reducing the resolution per image of the moving image shot by the camera 24. The in-vehicle device 21 transmits the low-definition image with the reduced data amount in this way to the probe center 5 in real time.

  The GPS device 25 acquires a position (latitude / longitude) of the host vehicle by receiving a signal from a GPS satellite. The GPS device 25 may acquire the position by using not only GPS satellite signals but also map (road) data and a gyroscope or acceleration sensor. The position information of the vehicle 2 acquired by the GPS device 25 is transmitted to the probe center 5 via the transmission / reception unit 23.

  The probe center 5 is a management center of a probe car system that collects information on each place in real time using each vehicle 2 as a sensor. The probe center 5 includes a transmission / reception unit 51, a vehicle position management unit 52, and a warning instruction unit 53. The probe center 5 can communicate with each vehicle and the home service center 4 via the transmission / reception unit 51. The vehicle position management unit 52 always keeps track of the position of each vehicle by storing and managing position information transmitted from the vehicle 2 as needed. When instructed by the home service center 4 that an abnormality has occurred in a certain house, the warning instruction unit 53 instructs the vehicle traveling around the house to shoot and transmit an image.

  FIG. 1 shows only the minimum configuration necessary for the present embodiment as the function of the probe center 5. The probe center 5 has a function of collecting various data such as traveling speed, airbag operation, and wiper operation as information other than images from each vehicle.

  In the present embodiment, the home service center 4 and the probe center 5 cooperate to constitute the security management system 3. The security management system 3 is configured by linking the two systems in this way, which is a system related to home security (a home security system of the house 1 and a home service center 4) and a probe car system (a vehicle 2 and a probe center 5). ) And are being developed and deployed individually. This is because it is easier to integrate two systems deployed individually in this way than to develop a new system. However, the security management system 3 may be configured to have both functions of the home service center 4 and the probe center 5. In addition, each of the home service center 4 and the probe center 5 in the present embodiment does not need to be configured by one computer, and is constructed by cooperation of a plurality of geographically separated computers via a network. It doesn't matter.

<Processing flow>
Next, processing when an abnormality such as an intrusion of a suspicious person occurs in any house will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  First, when the security sensor 12 of any house 1 detects the intrusion of a suspicious person, the home gateway 11 notifies the home service center 4 that an abnormality has occurred in the house (S2). When the home service center 4 receives the abnormality notification from the house (S4), the home service center 4 refers to the house position management unit 42 to identify the position of the house. Further, the time when the abnormality occurrence notification is received is stored. Then, the home service center 4 transmits to the probe center 5 the center position of the area to be warned and the time (S6). Here, the alert center position is the position of the abnormal house, and the time is the abnormal time. The processing of the probe center 5 after receiving this notification is after S20, but these processing will be described later, and the description of the processing at the home service center 4 will be continued.

  The warning instruction unit 43 of the home service center 4 notifies the house within a predetermined range centering on the house where the abnormality has occurred (the center of warning) that the abnormality has occurred, and the high-definition image for a certain period of time. Is sent (S10). As shown in FIG. 3, a warning instruction is notified to the house 102 in the warning target area A centering on the abnormal house 101. In addition, the warning area A is defined in advance, and the range (area) can be designed as appropriate.

  The house 1 that has received a warning instruction from the warning instruction unit 43 notifies the resident that an abnormality has occurred in the surrounding house by the voice / image terminal 14. Further, the camera 13 operating in the low-definition mode is switched to the high-definition mode at normal times, a high-definition image is taken for a predetermined time, and transmitted to the home service center 4 in real time (S12). The home service center 4 reproduces the high-definition image received from the house in real time and provides it to the monitoring staff (S14).

Next, processing of the probe center 5 that has received the abnormality notification (S6) from the home service center 4 will be described. When the alert instruction unit 53 of the probe center 5 receives the center position and occurrence time of occurrence of an abnormality from the home service center 4 (S20), the alert instruction unit sets an alert target area (S22). In FIG. 3, the alert target area set by the probe center 5 is the same as the alert target area set by the home service center 4, but the range of the alert target area may be different between the house and the vehicle. . For example, it is also preferable that the warning target range for vehicles is wider than the warning target range for residences. The warning instruction unit 53 then sets a timer for a predetermined time (S24). Then, the vehicle 202 currently located in the alert target area A is instructed to capture and store images (high-definition images) and to transmit low-definition images in real time (S26). Here, since the probe center 5 always receives position information from the vehicle and is managed by the vehicle position management unit 52, the probe center 5 grasps the current position of each vehicle. Therefore, the warning instruction unit 53 can identify a vehicle located in the warning target area A by referring to the vehicle position management unit 52.

  When receiving an image capturing instruction from the probe center 5, the vehicle 2 starts capturing an image using the camera 24 (S28). Since the high-definition image photographed by the camera 24 cannot be transmitted in real time due to the relationship between the data capacity and the communication speed, it is stored in the image storage unit 22 (S30). On the other hand, the data capacity reduction unit 26 creates a low-definition image with a reduced data amount by reducing the frame rate or the resolution, and the transmission / reception unit 23 transmits the low-definition image to the probe center 5 in real time (S30). ). The vehicle that has received the shooting instruction continues shooting for a predetermined period, and when this period ends, the shooting / recording of the image ends (S36). Then, the high-definition image stored in the image storage unit 22 is transmitted to the probe center 5 (S38).

  When receiving the low-definition image from the vehicle 2, the probe center 5 transmits it to the home service center 4 (S32). The home service center 4 reproduces this low-definition image in real time and provides it to the monitoring staff (S14).

  In the probe center 5, after giving a warning instruction to the vehicle, the timer is subtracted (S34), and if the timer is still continued, the process returns to S26. Then, at the next time, it instructs the vehicle located in the alert target area A to take and store an image. By doing in this way, while the timer continues, the image in the alert area A can be obtained.

  When the timer expires, the shooting instruction for the vehicle is terminated. And if the high-definition image transmitted from a vehicle is received, the image will be transmitted to the home service center 4 (S40). The home service center 4 that has received the high-definition image stores the high-definition image from the vehicle and the component image from the house so that it can be used as materials for investigation (S42).

<Action / Effect>
As described above, when an abnormality such as an intrusion of a third party is detected in a certain house, the neighboring house and the vehicle in the vicinity are notified, and an image is taken using the camera of the house and the vehicle. By collecting and analyzing these images, it is possible to record images showing suspicious individuals with a higher probability than operating a crime prevention system in a single house alone, and it is possible to prevent crime in the entire region. Become.

  If the home network system (house 1 and home service center 4) and the probe car system (vehicle 2 and probe car system 5) have been introduced individually, it is only necessary to create a mechanism for linking them. So it is easy to build.

  In addition, both the home network system and the probe car system have the disadvantage that there are few houses and vehicles that are targeted at the initial stage of service provision, and there are few available information (images in this embodiment). Thus, nodes are arranged with higher density, and more information can be acquired.

(Second Embodiment)
In the present embodiment, in addition to the functions of the first embodiment, a suspicious person is detected and tracked from the obtained image. In the present embodiment, processing in the home service center 4 is added as compared with the first embodiment, so the processing in the home service center 4 will be mainly described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. . Since this embodiment and the first embodiment share the processes other than the home service center 4, only the process of the home service center 4 is shown in FIG. 4 is different from the flowchart in FIG. 2 in that steps S102 and S104 are added.

  First, when an abnormality occurs in the house 1, the home service center 4 receives the notification (S2, S4). The camera 13 of the house 1 normally shoots in the low definition mode and transmits the image to the home service center 4. When the home service center 4 receives the abnormality notification from the house 1, the home service center 4 detects a suspicious person from the low-definition image received from the house (S102). In this suspicious person detection, the computer may automatically identify the characteristics of the suspicious person by performing face detection from the image. Alternatively, the characteristics of the suspicious person may be specified by displaying a low-definition image on the screen and designating a region of the image in which the supervisor shows the suspicious person's face. In this way, when an abnormality occurs, a suspicious person is detected and its characteristics are extracted. Here, although it has been described that each house constantly transmits a low-definition image to the home service center 4 at normal times, each house records an image of the latest predetermined period (for example, 30 minutes) in the house 1. It is also possible to adopt a configuration in which when an abnormality occurs, the information is collectively transmitted to the home service center 4. In this case, the home service center 4 detects and identifies a suspicious person from the images transmitted together.

  In the subsequent operations, as in the first embodiment, a warning instruction is given to the nearby houses and vehicles centering on the location of the abnormal house, and images are transmitted from these houses and vehicles to the home service center 4. (S6 to S14). Then, the home service center 4 detects the suspicious person specified in step S102 from the high-definition image transmitted in real time from the house and the low-definition image transmitted in real time from the vehicle (S104). This detection can be realized by performing face detection / face recognition from the image. When a suspicious person can be detected (FIG. 5A), the vehicle and the house are instructed to take an image with the suspicious person detection position as a new alert center position (FIG. 5B). ). Thus, when a suspicious person is specified and a suspicious person is detected from a photographed image, the suspicious person can be traced by photographing the image with the position as a new alert center. Therefore, it becomes possible to specify the escape route of the suspicious person (FIG. 5C).

  If the suspicious person cannot be detected from these images within the time when the house is transmitting high-definition images and the time when the vehicle is transmitting low-definition images, the tracking is terminated.

  In the above description, an example is described in which face recognition is used for identification and detection of a suspicious person. However, a suspicious person may be identified by focusing on organs other than the face, and focusing on clothes and the like. A suspicious person may be identified.

It is the figure which showed the structure of the monitoring system which concerns on 1st, 2nd embodiment. It is the flowchart which showed the flow of the process of the monitoring system which concerns on 1st Embodiment. It is the figure which showed the range of the house and vehicle where imaging | photography is instruct | indicated when abnormality has generate | occur | produced in the house. It is the flowchart which showed the flow of the process of the monitoring system which concerns on 2nd Embodiment. It is a figure explaining tracking of a suspicious person in the monitoring system concerning a 2nd embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

1 House 2 Vehicle 3 Security Management System 4 Home Service Center 5 Probe Center A Warning Area

Claims (7)

A monitoring system comprising a home security system installed in a house, an in-vehicle system installed in a vehicle, and a security management system communicable with the home security system and the in-vehicle system,
The in-vehicle system includes position information acquisition means for acquiring position information of the own vehicle, position information notification means for notifying the security management system of position information of the own vehicle, and photographing means for taking an image,
The home security system comprises detection means for detecting an abnormality, and an abnormality notification means for notifying the security management system of the occurrence of an abnormality,
When the security management system is notified of the occurrence of an abnormality from the home security system, the warning instruction means for instructing the vehicle located near the house where the home security system is installed to take and transmit an image And a monitoring system characterized by comprising: The warning instruction means of the security management system notifies the occurrence of an abnormality to the home security system installed near the house where the abnormality has occurred and also instructs the photographing and transmission of images. The monitoring system according to claim 1. The in-vehicle system further includes storage means for storing captured images,
When instructed to take and transmit an image from the warning instruction means of the security management system,
The photographing means shoots a moving image at a predetermined frame rate and resolution, accumulates the photographed image in a storage means,
A moving image in which at least one of a frame rate and a resolution is reduced and a data amount is suppressed is transmitted to the security management system in real time, and an image accumulated after the shooting is stopped is transmitted to the security management system. The monitoring system according to claim 1 or 2. Means for identifying a suspicious person from an image taken in a home security system in which an abnormality is detected;
Means for determining whether the identified suspicious person is present in an image transmitted from a vehicle;
Have
The warning instruction means, when a suspicious person is present in an image transmitted from a vehicle, instructs the vehicle located near the position of the vehicle to take and transmit an image. Item 4. The monitoring system according to any one of Items 1 to 3. A security management system capable of communicating with a home security system installed in a house,
A communication means for communicating with an in-vehicle system mounted on a vehicle;
Vehicle position management means for managing the running position of the vehicle based on the position information transmitted from the in-vehicle system;
A warning instruction means for instructing photographing and transmission of an image to a vehicle located near a house where the home security system is installed, when notified of the occurrence of an abnormality from the home security system;
A security management system comprising: The warning instruction means also notifies the occurrence of an abnormality to the home security system installed in a house located near the house where the abnormality has occurred, and instructs the photographing and transmission of an image. The security management system according to claim 5. Means for identifying a suspicious person from an image taken in a home security system in which an abnormality is detected;
Means for determining whether the identified suspicious person is present in an image transmitted from a vehicle;
Have
The said warning instruction | indication means instruct | indicates imaging | photography and transmission of an image with respect to the vehicle located near this vehicle, when a suspicious person exists in the image transmitted from a vehicle. Or the security management system of 6.

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