WO2017093982A1

WO2017093982A1 - A composite digital surveillance apparatus, a system and method of digital surveillance

Info

Publication number: WO2017093982A1
Application number: PCT/IB2016/057338
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ganeshprasad GIRIDHARASHARMA KUMBLE
Original assignee: Giridharasharma Kumble Ganeshprasad
Priority date: 2015-12-04
Filing date: 2016-12-03
Publication date: 2017-06-08

Abstract

A system for digital surveillance includes a composite digital surveillance apparatus, a mobile application and a remote cloud storage. The composite digital surveillance apparatus includes an array of trigger sensors which scan the environment and collects an environmental data, a processor which receives the environmental data collected by the sensors and makes a comparison of said environmental data with a user defined threshold value, and an environmental data capturing device which is triggered to capture an environmental information if the environmental data collected by the sensors has a value higher than that of the threshold value. The mobile application which is executed on a computing device, and on execution enables a processing unit to at least moderate and customize the operation of the composite digital surveillance apparatus and its components,to configure user-defined triggers to set up threshold value, to view, share, delete or perform any other operation on the environmental information stored in the remote cloud storage, or combination thereof. The remote cloud storage which receives, loads and stores the environmental information captured by environmental data capturing device.

Description

A composite digital surveillance apparatus, a system and method of digital surveillance

Field of Invention:

The invention relates to a modular smart device capable of providing camera surveillance, realtime motion detection and door access recognition and several other status about the surveillance area at the same time.

Background of Invention:

The current necessity of monitoring a home, an office space, a public space or an industry workplace is fulfilled by means of installing the standalone CCTV surveillance systems.

However, these surveillance system are to be kept in switched on mode regularly to have a regular monitoring, which results in huge electricity wastage. Further on, these surveillance system keeps on regularly recording the monitoring data, which means large digital memory space is required to keep a record for multiple days or months, as the user needs. However, the recording is not required for the entire duration but only for the moments when intrusion is detected, however these surveillance systems are not smart enough to identify intrusion and hence they regularly records the data leading to huge electronic storage wasted.

Even, current surveillance system also do not provide remote reviewing of the stored data, and a person has to be physically present to review all the recorded data, which further brings inconvenience for the end user.

Also controlling and configuring of surveillance system cannot be achieved remotely as of now, rather a person has to manually do it, or at least be in sight to do it using remote control. In case when user of the premises being surveyed is away from the premises, he shall not be able to control the device with ease.

Additionally, current surveillance system are installed through drilling, wiring & mounting the cameras on the poles, walls or ceilings. Over time, it has become cumbersome for the stakeholders to initiate & manage this process since each and every camera installation is a sequential function of time & requires proper support from both the customers and the installation personnel with the proprietary hardware and raw materials sold by the respective organization. Relocating the installed system again requires installation resources and personnel from the service provider. Since the system mentioned above doesn't bear efficiency to the users and other stakeholders, there is a need for a modular, plug & play, digital camera system to monitor the spaces mentioned and avoid the utility trade-offs and turnaround time.

Object of the Invention

The object of the invention is to provide surveillance apparatus which can be installed, configured, controlled, and accessed easily.

Summary of the Invention:

The object of the system is achieved by a composite digital surveillance apparatus of claim 1, a mobile application of claim 8, and a system for digital surveillance of claim 10. The composite digital surveillance apparatus includes an array of trigger sensors which scans the environment and collects an environmental data, a processor which receives the environmental data collected by the sensors and makes a comparison of said environmental data with a user defined threshold value, an environmental data capturing which is triggered to capture an environmental information if the environmental data collected by the sensors has a value higher than that of the threshold value.

According to another embodiment of the composite digital surveillance apparatus, wherein the trigger sensors comprises at least one of Ultrasonic Sensors, Touch Sensors, Proximity Sensors, Displacement Sensors, Bio Sensors, Image Sensors, Tilt Sensors, Pressure Sensors, Level Sensors, Smoke Sensors, Gas Sensors, Flame detectors, Photoelectric Sensor,

MagnetoHydroDynamic Sensors, Contact Image Sensors, Particle Detector, Speed Sensors, Water Sensors, UV (UltraViolet) Sensors, GPS (Global Positioning System) Transmitters & Receivers, Light Sensors, Sound Sensors, IR Sensors, Heat sensors, Temperature sensors, Humidity Sensors, Motion Sensors, and Accelerometers, or combination thereof. According to yet another embodiment of the composite digital surveillance apparatus, wherein the apparatus is synchronized to a remote cloud storage to send the captured environmental information to the remote cloud storage. According to one embodiment of the composite digital surveillance apparatus, wherein the environmental data capturing device is either a camera or a microphone, or combination thereof. The camera records video or images, and the microphone captures the sound in the monitored space in the form of audio. According another embodiment of the composite digital surveillance apparatus, the apparatus includes a speaker which generates standard or user-generated messages to the monitored environment to react on an emergency or without emergency in a periodic manner.

According to yet another embodiment of the composite digital surveillance apparatus, wherein the apparatus is either configured and controlled using a mobile application or is self-adapted for configuration and control based on the environmental data received by the sensors.

According to one embodiment of the composite digital surveillance apparatus, the apparatus includes an alarm which is activated when at least one of the threshold values of the trigger sensors are exceeded.

The mobile application is used to configure and control the composite digital surveillance apparatus. The mobile application is executed on a computing device, wherein the mobile application on execution enables a processing unit to at least one of :

- moderating and customizing operation of the composite digital surveillance apparatus and its components;

configuring threshold value with respect to each type of environment data;

to view, share, delete or perform any other operation on the environmental information stored in the remote cloud storage;.

- create, store, receive and send, either the custom or pre-defined voice messages to the speaker embedded in the apparatus. According to another embodiment of the mobile application, wherein the mobile application is adapted to manipulate orientation of the digital surveillance apparatus in horizontal, vertical or both horizontal and vertical axis.

The system for digital surveillance includes the composite digital surveillance apparatus, the mobile application and a remote cloud storage. The remote cloud storage receives, loads and stores the environmental information captured by environmental data capturing device. Brief Description of the Drawings

Figure 1 illustrates a system for digital surveillance

Figure 2.1 illustrates an embodiment of a composite digital surveillance apparatus

Figure 2.2 illustrates another embodiment of a composite digital surveillance apparatus

Figure 2.3 illustrates yet another embodiment of a composite digital surveillance apparatus Figure 2.4 illustrates an alternate embodiment of a composite digital surveillance apparatus Figure 3 illustrates a flowchart for performing surveillance using the system for digital surveillance.

Detailed Description

Figure 1 illustrates the system for digital surveillance.

We are defining major components of the system below:

Composite digital surveillance apparatus 1 : An integrated device in the system which actuates the process by plugging in the apparatus 1 to the bulb socket OR plug socket as a power source. The apparatus 1 is responsible for detecting changes in the surveillance area such as but not limited to motion through motion sensors, detect door access by communicating wirelessly with the door sensors and also illuminate the dark space being monitored by Light Sensors with the help of LED (Light Emitting Diodes) Lights. The trigger sensors are a collective set of sensors that collect real-time data of the surveillance area and checks for the threshold or configurations made by the user & triggers media capture through the camera embedded in the apparatus 1. The trigger sensor values can be remotely monitored by the user in the form of an application running on a computer or a hand-held computing device. The apparatus 1 also comprises of microphone and speaker for remote communication between the environmental space in which the apparatus 1 is installed and the user application of the application. The wireless interface not only connects to ISP Modem but also connects with external sensors for state data to trigger media capture.

ISP Modem 2: An ISP Modem 2 acts as a gateway to which all the apparatus 1 are connected. The ISP modem 2 is generic internet access device that is provided by the ISP (Internet Service Provider) or personally setup by the user. The device functions as an entry agent to the communication layer and also functions as a bridge between the device and communication layer.

Remote Cloud Servers 3 : A cluster of special and customized servers used by the individuals and companies to store data in a protected manner for remote accessibility into the remote cloud storage placed either within the remote cloud server 3 or in proximity to the remote cloud server 3. These servers offer services that are integrated into the software architecture of the proposed system to ensure continuous synchronization of the captured photos & videos to their respective cloud account's file system. This layer behaves as a storage transaction (write, read and delete) and data layer.

Mobile Client Application 4: It is a software application which is executed onto a mobile device or any other computing device, which enables processor of the computing device to provide an important interface to the user through which the user is enabled to install, configure, monitor or manage the apparatus 1. This mobile client application 4 is also enabled to access

images/videos/audio or any other environmental data captured by environment capturing device of the apparatus which is saved onto the remote cloud storage, or even can enable the computing device to receive the environmental information captured by the environment capturing device and further store within memory of the computing device. For monitoring, accessing, or configuring the apparatus 1 , the mobile client application 1 gathers a Wi-Fi Passcode as well as the personal cloud credentials securely. The gathered data is sent for authentication to validate the values, so as to facilitate remote file upload and Wi-Fi client authorization. We are further defining functionality and working of the system. The system includes contains a composite digital surveillance apparatus 1 consisting of LED Lights 5, Camera 6, and a set of embedded and external trigger sensors 8 such as temperature sensor, motion sensor, door sensor, etc., that communicates wirelessly to the apparatus's computing hardware. The apparatus 1 checks for change in state from the Trigger Sensors 8. On triggering any of the given sensor or some or all of the sensors, the instance of the surveillance is quickly captured in the real-time by the apparatus 1 with the help of the Camera 6, and with support of LED lights 5, if illumination support is required. In one embodiment of the system the LED lights 5 are not provided, and camera 6 captures the images or video in presence of environmental lighting. In an alternate embodiment, any other type of environmental data capturing device 6 can be provided like microphone alone or in combination with camera.

The type of the captured media is dependent on user's specific preference profiled in a mobile application 4 which configures and controls the apparatus 1. Once captured, the media is uploaded to remote cloud storage placed in proximity to the remote cloud server 3 specified by the user in order to make the captured media available to the user remotely. This is made possible by wirelessly communicating to the ISP modem or router 2 to which the all the apparatus 1 are connected to. On successful upload of the media 3, the user shall be notified through mobile notification, as a feature of the mobile application 4. The user can retrieve the captured media; review it and share it securely or allow access to specific people with digital identities such as user name, e-mail ID etc. On failure in uploading the media 3, the user will be notified that a problem regarding authentication of the Wi-Fi OR problem in the remote cloud persists and will be resolved by the user by profiling afresh in the mobile application 4 and making necessary changed in the Router or Cloud, if required. When required, the user can use default OR self-defined caution messages in the mobile application 4 to interrupt the space being monitored for an emergency or concerns of privacy. This is converted to an output in the form of sound by the speaker 11. The process repeats in real-time. Several selected procedures as mentioned above will be executed in parallel and will be made available to the user under the same roof and hence enables a last-mile reach, real-time connectivity and reduction in costs and associated data risks. Figure 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 illustrates various embodiments of the composite digital surveillance apparatus. Various components of the apparatus are described below:

LED Light Strips 5: A series of LED lights 5 that are powered by a special power circuit to illuminate the space to be monitored. Usually, they are power conservative, eco-friendly and bright enough to support capturing.

High Definition Camera 6: A serial camera 6 that captures the instant when the user condition triggered such as: motion detected or a door access is observed. It is a tiny HD Camera 6 with resolutions that fall under high definition category. The camera supports several modes such as Daylight, IR, Night Vision, Thermal, Heatmap etc.

Camera Indicator Light 7: The camera 6 is accompanied with a special LED Light which signifies the working status of the camera; i.e., it is a light which is ON if the camera is recording and OFF if the camera is not recording. This indicator light ensures privacy and cognitive usage of the camera in the surveillance area.

Trigger Sensors 8: The trigger sensors 8 are an array of wide variety of sensors that infinitely scans for change in the space in terms of a quantified amplitude and its representing value. The objects that are included are (but not limited to) Human beings, animals, light source, temperature, humidity, non-living objects, robots etc. that can or can't potentially disrupt the surveillance area above a threshold value.

Power pin 9: A generic pin that acts as a bridge between any type of power socket and the rest of the apparatus. This actuates the "Plug and Play" feature of the proposed system.

Pivot link 10: A mechanical system that rigidly tilts the system to hold them in a particular orientation required by the user. This allows the system to focus a defined area by the user. The pivot link 10 are made available in the system to change the orientation of the whole apparatus 1 or just the modular block holding camera 6, trigger sensors 8 and microphone. The pivot link 10 can be activated by manual force in person or by mechanics such as motors and servos. In embodiment of Figure 2.1, the apparatus 1 leverages a horizontal shaft -based fulcrum to pivot the body of the apparatus 1. Also, the apparatus 1 utilizes Spiral LED Lights 5 with specific arrangements of components as shown.

In embodiment of Figure 2.2, the apparatus 1 doesn't leverage any fulcrum to pivot the body of the apparatus 1. Also, the apparatus 1 mentioned utilizes Wide Panel LED Lights 5 with specific arrangements of components as shown. In embodiment of Figure 2.3, the apparatus leverages a spherical fulcrum to pivot the body of the apparatus 1. Also, the apparatus 1 utilizes Tubular LED Lights 5 with specific arrangements of components as shown.

In embodiment of Figure 2.4, the apparatus 1 leverages an inbuilt power socket that is parallel to a surface of the wall. Also, the apparatus 1 utilizes one or more combinations of the LED Lights 5 with specific arrangements of components as shown

Figure 3 represents a pictorial representation of the flow of the system for digital surveillance. Firstly, the user of the system enters valid Wifi & Cloud credentials. Secondly, the capture mode of the camera is set to either photo or video or both. Thirdly, the apparatus starts receiving environmental data from one or more trigger sensors whenever a change in environmental data is occurred. Thereafter, the apparatus checks in if the environmental data is beyond a threshold value configured for that particular environmental data, and if the environmental data is beyond the threshold, a change is detected and further and an environmental data capturing device adapted to be triggered to capture an environmental information like image/video/audio and save it either in remote storage device in proximity to remote cloud server. Additionally, some more action can be initiated when change is detected like sounding an alarm or generating pre-defined or user-defined voice messages. Failure in any of these actions shall lead to the generation of a notification in the user application. Process repeats indefinitely. The system is very efficient & integrated for monitoring different kinds of spaces. The proposed system is equipped with disruptive technologies, robust architecture to serve the society and lead us to a new generation with better security in place. There are various advantages which are achieved using the current system:

• Integration of LED (Light Emitting Diodes) Lights, wide range of sensor(s) and an HD (High Definition) surveillance camera that supports such as daylight, night mode, thermal capture etc., which can be controlled by the user remotely in an application.

• Unification of the resources into one system which reduces user cost & turnaround time for separate installation procedures.

• Plug & play feature of the apparatus which is directly inserted into the bulb socket or a plug socket present inside or outside static structures such as the surface of a wall, ceiling, pole etc. and dynamic structures such as a Locomotives & Vehicles.

• Seamless integration of event-triggered pictures & videos captured by the surveillance camera being synchronized to the user's remote cloud system which can be in the form of a public cloud or a hosted private cloud setup in a remote area by a cloud service provider in both the cases, which requires user's authentication to do so.

• Elimination of installing personnel or special equipment required to install the apparatus since the required power source is universally available in the form of sockets such as bulb sockets, pin sockets, plug sockets etc.

• Ability to pivot the central block of the apparatus containing the camera, microphone and the set of sensors in the horizontal or vertical or both axis; as well as pivoting the complete apparatus parallel to the plane of the power source to change the relative orientation of the whole device with respect to the space to be monitored in horizontal or vertical or both axis.

• Elimination of recording devices such as DVR (Digital Video Recorder) used by the current CCTV surveillance systems to record the data offline & display it locally. This again minimizes the user cost, local storage cost & disaster recovery cost.

• Inclusion of a battery to facilitate power to the system when power failure occurs.

• Inclusion of microphone and speaker which can be used to generate standard OR user generated messages to the space being monitored in case of emergency through the application remotely. The facility dedicated to the end user to define one or multiple triggers upon which the media shall be captured. The user-specified triggers are triggered once a quantified amount of valid data can be captured from the sensors present in the system such as Light Sensors, Sound Sensors, IR Sensors, Heat sensors, Temperature & Humidity Sensors, Motion Sensors, Accelerometers etc.

Inclusion of alarm device that will set-off to create an awareness in the surroundings, if an intrusion is detected in the surveillance area.

Ability of the apparatus to recognize the face of the human beings, animals, etc.

independent of the defined method of the capture of triggered media. The recognized faces will be accessed by the authorized users securely through applications.

Ability to communicate with external sensors and capture permissioned data to trigger the capture of media according to the user-definitions. The communication between the external sensors is made possible by on-board wireless modules operating on protocols such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, etc.

Ability to moderate and customize the operation of the system and its sub components as per the requirements through the application locally or remotely in a secure manner.

Claims

We claim:

1. A composite digital surveillance apparatus, comprising:

-an array of trigger sensors adapted to scan the environment and to collect an environmental data;

- a processor adapted to receive the environmental data collected by the sensors and to make a comparison of said environmental data with a user defined threshold value;

- an environmental data capturing device adapted to be triggered to capture an environmental information if the environmental data collected by the sensors has a value higher than that of the threshold value;

2. The composite digital surveillance apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the trigger sensors comprises at least one of Ultrasonic Sensors, Touch Sensors, Proximity Sensors, Displacement Sensors, Bio Sensors, Image Sensors, Tilt Sensors, Pressure Sensors, Level Sensors, Smoke Sensors, Gas Sensors, Flame detectors, Photoelectric Sensor, MagnetoHydroDynamic Sensors, Contact Image Sensors, Particle Detector, Speed Sensors, Water Sensors, UV (Ultra Violet) Sensors, GPS (Global Positioning System) Transmitters & Receivers, Light Sensors, Sound Sensors, IR Sensors, Heat sensors, Temperature sensors, Humidity Sensors, Motion Sensors, and Accelerometers, or combination thereof.

3. The composite digital surveillance apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the apparatus is synchronized to a remote cloud storage to send the captured environmental information to the remote cloud storage.

4. The composite digital surveillance apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the environmental data capturing device is either a camera or a microphone, or combination thereof, wherein the camera is adapted to record video or images or combination thereof, the microphone is adapted to capture the sound in the monitored space in the form of audio.

5. The composite digital surveillance apparatus according to claim 1 comprises a speaker adapted to generate standard or user-generated messages to the monitored environment to react on an emergency or without emergency in a periodic manner.

6. The composite digital surveillance apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the apparatus is either configured and controlled using a mobile application or is self-adapted for configuration and control based on the environmental data received by the sensors.

7. The composite digital surveillance apparatus according to claim 1, comprising an alarm adapted to be activated when at least one of the threshold values of the trigger sensors are exceeded.

8. A mobile application adapted to be executed on a computing device, wherein the mobile application on execution enables a processing unit to at least one of :

moderating and customizing operation of the composite digital surveillance apparatus and its components;

configuring threshold value with respect to each type of environment data;

to view, share, delete or perform any other operation on the environmental information stored in the remote cloud storage;

create, store, receive and send, either the custom or pre-defined voice messages to the speaker embedded in the apparatus.

9. A mobile application according to claim 8, wherein the mobile application is adapted to manipulate orientation of the digital surveillance apparatus in horizontal, vertical or both horizontal and vertical axis.

10. A system for digital surveillance comprising:

a composite digital surveillance apparatus wherein, the apparatus comprises of an array of trigger sensors adapted to scan the environment and to collect an

environmental data; a processor adapted to receive the environmental data collected by the sensors and to make a comparison of said environmental data with a user defined threshold value and an environmental data capturing device adapted to be triggered to capture an environmental information if the environmental data collected by the sensors has a value higher than that of the threshold value;

a mobile application adapted to be executed on a computing device, and on execution adapted to enable a processing unit to atleast

moderate and customize the operation of the composite digital surveillance apparatus and its components;

configure user-defined triggers to set up threshold value;

view, share, delete or perform any other operation on the environmental information stored in the remote cloud storage;

create, store, receive and send, either the custom or pre-defined voice messages to the speaker embedded in the apparatus, or combination thereof; a remote cloud storage adapted to receive, load and store the environmental information captured by environmental data capturing device.