A portable geo-aware visual surveillance system for vehicles

This paper presents the development of a portable surveillance system based on a network of six cameras, attitude sensors and distributed processors mounted on a HMMWV. The system extends the functionality of traditional fixed-installation intelligent visual surveillance (IVS) systems by tracking targets and detecting events in a geographic context and allowing the entire platform to be redeployed to different locations. This paper focuses on our solutions to the following core problems of 360° geo-aware, portable IVS: target geo-localization and tracking, track stitching within and across the six cameras, rule-based event detection and real-time visualization on a map-based interface. An important contribution is our method for automatically updating the geo-localization calibration based on attitude measurements when the vehicle is redeployed. Experimental results validate the performance of the system.