Intelligent scene monitoring; technical aspects and practical experience

Recent increases in the criminal and terrorist threat have frequently been countered by a proliferation of CCTV cameras. Visible cameras offer some deterrence, and CCTV can be an effective means of patrolling an establishment, perhaps to track the source of alarms from other security systems. However, it is now widely accepted that CCTV does not provide an effective alarm system-the video images need to be interpreted with intelligence if false alarms are to be kept to a minimum; humans are expensive and particularly bad at monitoring TV screens for even short periods. The paper describes practical experiences gained from one of the world´s first major installations of automated, intelligent scene monitoring systems. The system is EDS´ SENTINEL SMS and the installation is at the UK end of the Channel Tunnel