AU2014202293B2

AU2014202293B2 - Monitored security system including cameras

Info

Publication number: AU2014202293B2
Application number: AU2014202293A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Glenn Gary Smith
Original assignee: Sure Technologies Pty Ltd
Current assignee: Sure Technologies Pty Ltd
Priority date: 2014-04-28
Filing date: 2014-04-28
Publication date: 2021-02-25
Anticipated expiration: 2034-04-28
Also published as: NZ629172A; AU2014202293A1

Abstract

The invention provides an alarm system for protecting a premises, the alarm system comprising: a plurality of alarm zones each capable of registering a zone alarm event to an alarm controller when the security of the zone is breached; a monitoring centre connected by an alarm communications network to the alarm controller; one or more cameras at the premises each recording a camera memory of past images, and connected to the monitoring centre by a camera communications network, at least one of the alarm zones being associated within software of the alarm system with one or more of the cameras; wherein the software of the alarm system is programmed to be able to display to a monitoring person images from the recorded memory of past images from cameras associated with the alarm zone following registration of a zone alarm event. 1/3 3 3 3 22 23 -24 32\43 44 42 ... .. 41 ~25 21 (404. 31 Figi1

Description

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MONITORED SECURITY SYSTEM INCLUDING CAMERAS FIELD

[0001] The present invention relates to security systems, in particular to security systems which are monitored by a monitoring centre and which make use of camera information.

BACKGROUND

[0002] Security cameras have been incorporated into monitored security systems in the prior art. Security cameras can be a useful adjunct in the monitoring of a premises, but existing systems are expensive, with purpose designed hardware integration of the camera and alarm systems. Further, existing systems often require a laborious playback of camera information once an alarm event has been activated, to identify possible intruders in a zone or approaching a zone.

[0003] There is therefore a need to provide an improved and/or more cost-effective monitored alarm system which incorporates camera information.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0004] In accordance with a broad aspect of the invention, there is provided an alarm system for protecting a premises, the alarm system comprising: a plurality of alarm zones each capable of registering a zone alarm event to an alarm controller when the security of the zone is breached; a monitoring centre connected by an alarm communications network to the alarm controller; one or more cameras at the premises each recording a camera memory of past images, and connected to the monitoring centre by a camera communications network, at least one of the alarm zones being associated within software of the alarm system with one or more of the cameras; wherein the software of the alarm system is programmed to be able to display to a monitoring person images from the recorded memory of past images from cameras associated with the alarm zone following registration of a zone alarm event; and the cameras and the alarm controller are connected independently to the monitoring centre, and the camera communications network is provided by Internet connection.

[0005] <deleted>.

[0006] <deleted>.

[0007] In one embodiment, the alarm system is programmed to able to display images taken from a time interval before the zone alarm event time, the time interval being predefined and variable depending on the particular zone and camera involved. Following the zone alarm event, the alarm system may inspect timestamps of images taken from each associated camera up to the time interval before the zone alarm event time, and may identify a starting image identifier for the camera in readiness for the display to the operator. The images may be able to be played by the monitoring person in sequence as a video.

[0008] In one embodiment, the display of images includes functions selectable by the monitoring person including at least one of play, pause, stop, rewind, fast forward and traverse to next or previous event sequence.

[0009] In one embodiment, the alarm system computes a camera time offset by comparing a reported date and time from the camera with a reference date and time, and adjusts timestamps from the camera using the camera time offset to ensure that appropriate images are displayed compared with the reference date and time.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0010] Figure 1 is a depiction of a plan of a premises with an alarm system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention ;

[0011] Figure 2 describes method steps in accordance with an aspect of an embodiment of the system of the invention.

[0012] Figure 3 is a screenshot of an embodiment of the system of the invention in use.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

[0013] An embodiment of the current invention will now be described.

[0014] Referring first to Figure 1, an alarm system according to an embodiment of the invention comprises a premises defined by a perimeter 10 within which is typically a building comprising a plurality of alarm zones 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 each capable of registering a zone alarm event of the triggering of one or more alarms 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 respectively in each zone. Alarms 41 to 45 are connected, typically by fixed wire, to an alarm controller 40 which processes the zone alarm events and sets off alarms or other actions depending on its armed state and other parameters. One of the actions available to alarm controller 40 is to communicate over an alarm communications network to a remote monitoring centre 60, typically but not necessarily via Internet 70, PSTN, mobile telephone network, or other means. Also housed within premises 10 is a number of cameras 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 which are typically connected to a monitoring centre via a wired LAN or WiFi link to router 50, in turn connected through Internet 70.

[0015] According to the invention, software of the alarm system typically housed in monitoring centre 60 integrates information from cameras and the alarm controller 40 in order to be able to display to a monitoring person images from the recorded memory of past image from relevant cameras when a zone alarm event is triggered.

[0016] In this embodiment, the cameras and the alarm controller are connected independently to the monitoring centre, albeit that both can use the Internet 70 and even in variations, both can use router 50 connected to the Internet 70. The independent connection enables simple setup and use of widely available web connected cameras, with no special hardware interconnection at the premises between the cameras and the alarm controller. Typically, the camera communications network is a secure network such as a virtual private network.

[0017] The cameras record a memory of past images either as stills or a video sequence, or as a sequence of detected events triggered by image changes. The past images are encoded as is known in the art with date and time stamps representing the time at which the image was recorded as defined by a local clock on the camera. The clock on each camera may or may not be synchronised regularly or at all with the external time signals or with the monitoring centre, so in this embodiment the monitoring centre comprises as part of the alarm system software elements which determine a camera time offset, being a difference between the time as measured by each camera, and the time as measured by a clock at the monitoring centre. In this embodiment, the camera time offsets are determined on the occurrence of each zone alarm event.

[0018] In a set up mode, an administrator of the alarm system in the monitoring centre operates interface software to identify and integrate information from each camera, and to define which camera is associated with which zone together with a time interval for each associated sign and camera to be discussed below. Typically, each zone may be associated with a different subset of zero, one or more of the available cameras, and the subsets for each zone may overlap. For example, in Figure 1 zone 22 may be associated with cameras 31, 32, and 33 whereas adjacent zone 21 may be associated with cameras 31, 36 and 37. The association may for example be held in a memory of the interface software in the form of a look up table defined by a matrix A(Z,C) which is 1 if Z and C are associated or 0 if Z and C are not associated, where the row Z defines the zone and the column C denotes the camera.

[0019] The time interval T(Z,C) is also specified by the administrator using the interface software in the set up mode. This represents a time interval from before the zone alarm event time for which images will be displayed to a monitoring person. For example, if zone 22 triggers a zone alarm event, it would be appropriate for the time interval T(22, 31) to be 180 seconds while the time interval T (22, 32) or T (22, 33) to be somewhat less at say 60 seconds, since camera 31 records images which are further from zone 22 and a burglar is more likely to have been detected by camera 31 on entry to the property, before camera 32 or camera 33. In this way, appropriate images can be obtained from the associated cameras on triggering of a zone alarm event and made available for display to the monitoring person.

[0020] In operation of the alarm system, triggering of an alarm event is communicated as is known in the art by an alarm controller 40 to monitoring centre 60. Interface software in the monitoring centre 60 performance its standard functions in response to the zone alarm event, and in addition looks up A(Z,C) whether any cameras C are associated with the zone Z triggered. If so, a sequence of operations defined in figure 2 is carried out to identify the appropriate images to display to the monitoring person.

[0021] Referring now to figure 2, in step 101 the system detects the time offset of the first noted associated camera, by first starting to download a live low resolution image from the camera and reading the download stream until the time stamp DAT and TIM properties are received. The system then compares the live camera date and time with the live reference date and time as defined by the monitoring centre (which may or may not be synchronised with an external measurement). The difference is the camera time offset.

[0022] In step 102, the system calculates the target timestamp to look for on the camera as the time of the zone alarm event minus the time interval T (Z, C) minus the camera time offset. The time of the zone alarm event may be a time as measured by the monitoring centre at which the zone alarm event was received by the monitoring centre, typically only a few seconds later than the actual time of the zone alarm, or may be an actual time of the zone alarm communicated by the alarm controller, in which case synchronisation between the alarm controller in the monitoring centre is required.

[0023] In step 103, the system requests the most recent event number (such as a video sequence number) from the camera. In step 104, starting from the most recent event number, the system downloads a low resolution image from the recorded images in the camera and reads the download stream until the DAT and TIM properties are received, and extracts the timestamp. In step 106, the system compares the extracted timestamp with the target timestamp, and if the extracted timestamp is not earlier than the target timestamp, the event number is decremented and control loops back to step 104 to extract the next last event timestamp. The loop continues in this way until the extracted timestamp is earlier than the target timestamp, at which time the appropriate events number for the camera has thereby been determined. In step 107, control loops back to step 101 for the next camera until all associated cameras have been interrogated.

[0024] At the end of this sequence of preparative operations following a zone alarm event, the system has identified appropriate events numbers corresponding to the defined time intervals from which to download images (which may include video ) for display.

[0025] Referring now to figure 3, a display screen is shown which the monitoring person is able to call up at some time after the zone alarm event. Four images 80 are shown from four associated cameras, labelled camera 2, camera 7, camera 6 and camera 4, initially starting with the event number identified in the preparatory operations described above. At the base of each image are controls such as step forward, fast forward, traverse to next or previous event number etc., enabling a monitoring person to inspect the images stored in each associated camera.

The images may be downloaded for future analysis to be stored in the monitoring centre software, but initially may be housed on the cameras themselves during the real time monitoring process.

[0026] Persons skilled in the art will appreciate that many variations may be made to the invention without departing from the scope of the invention, which is determined from the broadest scope and claims.

[0027] For example, while a remote monitoring centre is contemplated in the embodiment described above, nearby or even onsite monitoring centre is also within the broadest scope of the invention. Further, the system and its software can be distributed amongst number of locations, operating together by communication as an integrated system.

[0028] Also, the word "image" in the claims is taken to include still or video images unless the context requires otherwise.

[0029] In the claims which follow and in the preceding description of the invention, except where the context requires otherwise due to express language or necessary implication, the word "comprise" or variations such as "comprises" or "comprising" is used in an inclusive sense, i.e. to specify the presence of the stated features but not to preclude the presence or addition of further features in various embodiments of the invention. Further, any method steps recited in the claims are not necessarily intended to be performed temporally in the sequence written, or to be performed without pause once started, unless the context requires it.

[0030] It is to be understood that, if any prior art publication is referred to herein, such reference does not constitute an admission that the publication forms a part of the common general knowledge in the art, in Australia or any other country.

Claims

1. An alarm system for protecting a premises, the alarm system comprising: a plurality of alarm zones each capable of registering a zone alarm event to an alarm controller when the security of the zone is breached; a monitoring centre connected by an alarm communications network to the alarm controller; one or more cameras at the premises each recording a camera memory of past images, and connected to the monitoring centre by a camera communications network, at least one of the alarm zones being associated within software of the alarm system with one or more of the cameras; wherein: the software of the alarm system is programmed to be able to display to a monitoring person images from the recorded memory of past images from cameras associated with the alarm zone following registration of a zone alarm event; and the cameras and the alarm controller are connected independently to the monitoring centre, and the camera communications network is provided by Internet connection.

2. The alarm system of claim 1, wherein the alarm system is programmed to able to display images taken from a time interval before the zone alarm event time, the time interval being predefined and variable depending on the particular zone and camera involved.

3. The alarm system of claim 2, wherein following the zone alarm event, the alarm system inspects timestamps of images taken from each associated camera up to the time interval before the zone alarm event time, and identifies a starting image identifier for the camera in readiness for the display to the operator.

4. The alarm system of claim 3, wherein the images can be played by the monitoring person in sequence as a video.

5. The alarm system of claim 3, wherein the display of images includes functions selectable by the monitoring person including at least one of play, pause, stop, rewind, fast forward and traverse to next or previous event sequence number.

6. The alarm system of claim 2, wherein the alarm system computes a camera time offset by comparing a reported date and time from the camera with a reference date and time, and adjusts timestamps from the camera using the camera time offset to ensure that appropriate images are displayed compared with the reference date and time.