A framework for designing active Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera networks for surveillance applications

Camera networks have become more predominant in many aspects around our society. Designing active Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera networks requires placing the cameras appropriately in the environment according to the designated coverage requirements as well as examining the network's operational resilience to the environment dynamics. This design process is crucial before physically establishing the network to ensure successful deployment and operation. In this paper, we present a framework that can be applied for designing practical PTZ camera networks in a realistic virtual simulation environment. The framework enables optimizing the camera network placement for coverage of specific regions of interest (ROI) in the monitored space. Also, simulating the network operation against environment dynamics in order to determine the impact on the pre-established design as an active camera network is expected to monitor additional and unknown events happening in the environment. A surveillance case study is presented where results show how the developed framework can be adequately used for experimentally designing and testing active PTZ camera networks.