OBJECT DETECTION AND TRACKING IN DISTRIBUTED SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS USING MULTIPLE CAMERAS Object Detection and Tracking in Distributed Surveillance Systems Using Multiple Cameras

摘要

In this paper, the main problems related to the design of the architecture of a Distributed Multisensor Surveillance System have been highlighted. Processing and communication aspects have been considered by providing an insight in several issues and related solutions. The paper has stressed from one side the high variability of possible solutions, while highlighting the possibility of organizing in a general framework the complex set of knowledge and expertise necessary in a multidisciplinary field such as surveillance. It has been shown that, in this context, data fusion methods play a very important role, as they are constitute a key step to allow spatial-temporal fusion occurring at the physical level of the architecture as well as fusion related to attributes of events occurring at the logical level. In this direction, examples have been provided describing new emerging methods and related applications, where either multiple cameras or multiple knowledge sources have been employed. Agent-based fusion has been presented as an example of spatial-temporal information fusion, as well as integration of multiple views to form a mosaicing provided by a physical virtual sensor from views coming from a mobile camera. An example describing fusion of shape information associated with an event detected by more cameras (i.e. a person walking in a scene) lias been also presented. A complex system integrating both physical and logical fusion methods in a complex architecture oriented at people number estimation in a wide area scene has been also discussed in the presented framework. The paper is definitively not exhaustive as the global problem is so complex and multidisciplinary that a big amount of research still needs to be carried on: the most interesting issues to be explored in the next years, in the authors' opinion are related to new aspects related to surveillance service providing over open networks, such as internet, as well as to automatic processing tools for ensuring privacy protection issues in DMSSs.