Apparatus and method for locating camera towers and scheduling surveillance

摘要

An apparatus and method for the operation of, or the arrangement and operation of, a surveillance system comprising a plurality of camera towers, each of which comprises a plurality of cameras tasked with surveilling a plurality of points-of-interest (POIs). In its most general setting, given limited camera towers, the system (a) determines which locations should install towers, (b) evaluates surveillance requirements ƒ that specify the probability that each camera should surveil each POI at any point in time, and (c) generates a set of camera configurations and frequency-of-utilization vector α for those configurations that creates a surveillance schedule to meet requirements ƒ over T. By applying α, the apparatus and method directs each camera to orient at successive time points to surveil in a manner that is relatively unpredictable to adversaries and which meets requirements ƒ. In specialized embodiments, surveillance requirements and/or fixed placements of camera towers are pre-specified.