An embedded smart surveillance system for target tracking using a PTZ camera

Video surveillance systems have become relatively cheap consumer products employed in the most diverse scenarios. Digital IP cameras can deliver very high quality images and can be directly connected to the Internet. As digital circuits become smaller and faster, video surveillance sensors can be equipped with general processors and DSPs. Smart video analytics algorithms can thus be embedded in the surveillance sensors, for fast at-camera processing. In this paper we present an embedded smart surveillance system for object and people tracking, using an IP PTZ camera, which can pan and tilt to follow the target. The system is implemented on the DM6437 Evaluation Module based on the TMS320DM6437 processor from Texas Instruments. The PTZ camera is driven by our proposed tracking algorithm via HTTP-based commands, to keep the target always in the field of view. The system runs in real-time and a quantitative performance evaluation is provided in the paper.