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Devices III

Surveillance Cameras

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Surveillance of the Borders

• 235 different video surveillance systems currently in operation along America's borders (6000 miles Canada + Mexico)– A 26-camera surveillance system in Douglas,

Arizona, and a 32-camera system in Blaine, Washington (Installed in 1990)

• Installed in pairs (for day and night vision)• Can read the license plates and movements

from 2 miles away• Remotely controlled from miles away through

wireless• Problems

– Won’t work above 68oF (95% of the time fails)– Very expensive (0.25 mil/camera)

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New Technologies

• Near Infra Red (NIR) Camera– Simultaneous imaging in visible and near

infra-red spectrum– Uses InGaAs-based focal plane array with

extremely high spectral sensitivity

• LIGHTGRABBER technology– Can capture images at light levels as low as

0.3 luxDemo

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Automated Video Security (AVS)

• Computer automated image analysis • Automatically detect unusual events

and trigger alarms• Reduces the volume of data presented

to security personnel. • Can monitor large areas and handle

complex time-varying images

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AVS Components

•May use existing CCTV surveillance infrastructure

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Challenges - Video Surveillance (Conventional)

• Automatic detection and tracking of people– Implement simplistic approaches to incident

detection– False triggers are generated by moving

foliage, passing headlights, cloud shadows etc.

– Useful only in highly constrained environments

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AVS Solutions

• Maximum detection and tracking with minimal false triggers

• Can detect stationary objects (packages) introduced into the scene

• Sophisticated algorithms – Temporal processing – Model based analysis

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AVS Applications

• Perimeter security• Interior security• Under vehicle surveillance• Safety

– Warning on large animals, joggers

• Data acquisition– Traffic data– Counting Bee project to detect

explosives

Demo page

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Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS)

• State-of-the-art technology to monitor borders from distance

• Three components– Remote video surveillance (RVS)– Unattended ground sensors– ICAD software

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Underwater Surveillance

• Distributed Surveillance Sensor Network (DSSN)– Use of small, inexpensive undersea vehicles

(Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) for surveillance applications

– Based on MIT’s Autonomous Ocean Sampling Network (AOSN)

– Sensors communicate acoustically

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DSSN (cont’d)

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DSSN (cont’d)

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DSSN (cont’d)

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Other Side of the Fence

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Who are Against Surveillance?

• SCP (Surveillance Camera Players!)– Movement to destroy the myth that only

suspects fear being watched– Proclaims that any amount of video

monitoring will prevent terrorism– Points to the statistical fallacy of facial

recognition in a crowd