A novel dual camera intelligent sensor for high definition 360 degrees surveillance

A novel integrated multicamera video-sensor (panoramic catadioptric vision tracker plus - PCVT+) is proposed for surveillance systems. In the proposed setup an omni-directional imaging device is used in conjunction with a pan, tilt, zoom (PTZ) camera leading to an innovative kind of sensor that is able to automatically track at a higher zoom level any moving object within the guarded area. In particular, the catadioptric sensor is firstly calibrated and used in order to track every single object that is moving within its 360-degree field of view. Omni-directional image portions are eventually rectified and pan, tilt and zoom parameters of the moving camera are automatically adjusted by the image processing system in order to track detected objects. A cooperative strategy was developed for the selection of the object to be tracked by the PTZ sensor in the case of multiple targets.