System of systems approach to a human tracking problem with mobile robots using a single security camera

Solving the problem of integrating several independent systems to work intelligently and autonomously together has been an important task for an area called System of Systems (SoS). Currently there are initiatives in large-scale systems utilizing a SoS approach, such as Internet and ballistic missile defense systems. In this work, a smaller, yet complex human tracking task by a mobile robot in a dynamic outdoor environment has been achieved by utilizing a SoS design approach. The detection of moving humans is performed using statistical background modeling and foreground detection on sequential images provided by a single fixed security camera in an outdoor location. The robot control is achieved through established communication formatted as XML messages containing positional data of a moving human target. A real world application of such a SoS architecture includes border thread detection, where humans crossing the border illegally can be tracked by autonomous border protection vehicles.