Video Analytics For Facility Security

If you have watched the TV program, A Person Of Interest, this concept will be familiar to you. The program is based on a city-wide surveillance system that ties all independent surveillance systems together, analyses the data, and outputs "security issues" for the stars of the show to resolve. (Supposedly NYC actually has something similar up and running.)

In the more mundane world of the individual facility something similar is possible. By adding computer analysis to your new or existing video security system, you can receive live alerts to the presence of anomalies without anyone watching the camera feeds, or without risking that the watcher is distracted or simply misses the event. Further, there are some events, like the 'package left behind' that are very difficult to notice in a busy space. 

The definition of video analytics according to Honeywell, a major vendor in the field, is "cutting-edge software that uses algorithms which detect, track, analyze and classify behaviors and objects, vehicles and people in a live or recorded video system".

The main applications are detecting incidents that are difficult for conventional sensors; detect, track and alert on incidents that threaten operations; monitor more cameras effectively with less labor; and collect data for operations.

Two key benefits of video analytics are the elimination of storing vast amounts of irrelevant data and of 'inattention blindness'. A military study of surveillance demonstrated that, when monitoring two or more sequencing monitors, the operator will miss as much as 45% of all scene activity in a two minute period. Over a 22 minute period the percentage missed goes up to 95%.

Here are some ways that video analytics can be used.

• Car Counting (can give lane by lane sub totals)
  
• Person Falling (detects the telltale movement of falling)
  
• People Or Object Counting (a kind of inventory taking)
  
• Moving In The Wrong Direction 
  
• After Hours Theft (activity that is an anomaly)
  
• Object Left Behind (detects the appearance of something that wasn't there before)
  
• Control Lights (Off/On or varied levels where sensors are impractical, e.g., a warehouse)
  

Video Analytics can provide better security, improve the efficiency of your system through alerts and searches, provide the additional benefit of counting, and reduce costs of personnel, data storage, and data collection for management use.

Costs vary significantly based on what you want to accomplish. However it is not hard to imagine that video analytics will become standard in more and more facilities in the near future.

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orig post date NOV 2012