Low-cost outdoor video motion and non-motion detection

The video monitoring of outdoor sites is a demanding task that is commonly tackled by having security guards look at arrays of CCTV monitors. Experience shows that this is largely ineffective, both as a detector and a deterrent. However, modern digital imaging systems can solve both these problems by maintaining constant vigilance 24 hours a day. These systems can be versatile and can operate in several different modes, video motion detection, video nonmotion detection and incident capture, thus providing a flexibility of application environment. By basing these systems on powerful PC technology the end user benefits from a large range of facilities at relatively low cost. In particular, it is possible to have low cost frame storage and high performance communications over telephones, ISDN or Ethernet. Image sequences both prior to and after an event can be stored and transmitted. Archiving and retrieval of events can be done efficiently through standard databases. However, in order that such systems be operationally viable it is essential that the detection algorithms be smart enough to reduce the number of false alarms to virtually zero. Most of the discussion concerns technology that is currently available and in everyday use: the author uses the ASTRAGUARD product as a specific example of such a system.