GB2462483A

GB2462483A - Automated surveillance with operator over-ride.

Info

Publication number: GB2462483A
Application number: GB0814542A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Stuart Thompson
Original assignee: VISEUM
Current assignee: VISEUM
Priority date: 2008-08-10
Filing date: 2008-08-10
Publication date: 2010-02-17
Also published as: GB0814542D0

Abstract

An over ride device to enable an operator to over-ride the computer control of a pan tilt and zoom (PTZ) surveillance camera in order to view a specific area identified by the operator. The computer control is able to direct the camera to identify and track targets according to their activity and to priorities set in the computer. A surveillance system with said device can be over ridden while operating in either automatic or manual mode, using a variety of control mechanisms, such as finger touch, voice control, joystick, mouse or touchpad, and may also be used to override and change anyone of said priorities.

Description

Automated Surveillance Operator Over-ride It is known to carry out automated CCTV surveillance as described in Viseum's European Patent 1579399, granted on 25th July,2007, whereby a control computer applies decision rules to data received from a number of fixed reference cameras to control the movement of a pan tilt and zoom ("PTZ") camera.

The present invention relates to the way in which the operator of such a surveillance system or other similar surveillance system may be provided with a system over-ride facility.

The said over-ride facility enables an operator who is monitoring images from one or more fixed reference cameras and a PTZ camera to take control of any or all of the Pan Tilt & Zoom functions of the PTZ camera, and over-ride the output control signals from the control computer so as to drive the camera's field of view to a specific area of interest to the operator, which the operator identifies by spatial co-ordinates.

These co-ordinates may be selected and defined by reference to the images from any or all of the system's static reference cameras. They may additionally or alternatively also be selected and defined by reference to the images from the PTZ camera.

An automated surveillance system may be operable in either automatic or manual mode, and the operator over-ride facility of this invention may be applied to the system when it is operating in either of these modes.

The operator over-ride may be effected by a variety of means, a simple and well known method being to control the movement of the PTZ camera to the desired area by a joystick type of input, the resulting movement of the camera being visually monitored by the operator along line-of-sight until the desired field of view of the camera is achieved.

A more sophisticated approach is to identify the co-ordinates of the required target area by pointing to them and then cause the control computer to drive the PTZ camera to these coordinates. This method, with the use of appropriate servo algorithms allows the camera to be moved to the required position along an optimum path and at a greater speed than can be achieved by line-of-sight manual control.

A variety of means can be used to select the desired co-ordinates and degree of zoom and input this data to the control computer. Specific examples are: a traditional computer control, such as a joystick, a "Mouse" or a touch-pad control, driving a cursor to the desired spot.

a finger touch-screen facility on the reference monitor screens, to simply point to the desired coordinates -this is a more convenient and faster method.

configuring the control computer to accept voice instructions in relation to clearly pre-defined specific spatial points, such as a building entrance, or in relation to specific patterns of behaviour which the computer is already programmed to recognize, such as behaviour typical of a drug deal.

The instruction given by the operator, using any of the aforementioned methods, may be an ab in/tb instruction to point to a new location, or it may be an instruction to over-ride the priorities currently being observed by the computer, for example directing specific attention to one among several activities previously identified by the system through which the computer is currently cycling the PTZ camera.

Regardless of the method of pointing selected, once the PTZ camera has been correctly pointed at the desired co-ordinates the computer may operate the panning tilting and zooming of the camera in a variety of modes.

In one non-limiting example of such a pointing mode, once the PTZ camera has been pointed to the operator selected co-ordinate it will zoom in to any object found there, but will not follow the object if it moves, and if no object is found it will not zoom in.

In another example, once the PTZ camera has been correctly pointed to the desired object at the operator selected co-ordinates it will zoom in to it and track it.

It will be readily clear to those skilled in the art how the functionalities here described may be achieved and rendered into practice by appropriate use of mechanical, electronic and software systems.

Claims

Patent Application GB0814542.7 Automated Surveillance Operator Over-ride Claims: 1. A surveillance device, comprising a camera capable of movement in Pan and Tilt and with a Zoom capability (a "PTZ camera") and a computer embodying an intelligent program to control and direct the said PTZ camera to identify and track target objects displaying certain predefined types of activity according to predefined priorities and display the target object and the area surrounding it on a viewing device, in which the computer's control of the PTZ camera can be over-ridden by a human operator to direct the camera to an alternative area of interest or change the predefined priorities.
2. A surveillance device in accordance with Claim 1 in which following the human operator over-ride the computer's camera control facility continues automatically to track and zoom into any target identified in the alternative area.
3. A surveillance device in accordance with Claim 1 in which the human 0) operator over-ride temporarily disables the computer's camera control Q facility, allowing the human operator to control the camera manually.

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4. A surveillance device in accordance with Claim 3 in which the human Q operator over-ride temporarily disables the tracking element of the computer's camera control facility, leaving the Zoom element operating and able automatically to zoom into any target identified in the alternative area.
5. A surveillance device in accordance with any of Claims 1, 2, 3 or 4 in which human operator over-ride is achieved by finger touch on the said viewing device.
6. A surveillance device in accordance with any of Claims 1, 2, 3 or 4 in which human operator over-ride is achieved by voice control.
7. A surveillance device in accordance with any of Claims 1, 2, 3 or 4 in which human operator over-ride is achieved by an electro-mechanical input peripheral, such as a joystick, mouse or touchpad.
8. A surveillance device in accordance with any of the foregoing claims in which the human operator over-ride instruction is processed by the computer to optimize the directing of the PTZ camera to the alternative surveillance area.
9. A surveillance device in accordance with any of the previous claims in which locations where the PTZ may have been pointing in the past can be identified.