Communication Mechanisms and Middleware for Distributed Video Surveillance

A new generation of advanced surveillance systems is being conceived as a collection of multisensor components such as video, audio, and mobile robots interacting in a cooperating manner to enhance situation awareness capabilities to assist surveillance personnel. The prominent issues that these systems face are the improvement of existing intelligent video surveillance systems, the inclusion of wireless networks, the use of low power sensors, the design architecture, the communication between different components, the fusion of data emerging from different type of sensors, the location of personnel (providers and consumers), and the scalability of the system. This paper focuses on the aspects pertaining to real-time distributed architecture and scalability. For example, to meet real-time requirements, these systems need to process data streams in concurrent environments, designed by taking into account scheduling and synchronization. This paper proposes a framework for the design of visual surveillance systems based on components derived from the principles of real-time networks/data-oriented requirements implementation scheme. It also proposes the implementation of these components using the well-known middleware technology common object request broker architecture. Results using this architecture for video surveillance are presented through an implemented prototype.