Integrating smart cameras into ZigBee

Up to now, surveillance applications provided by Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems have been separated from core Building Automation Systems (BAS). The main reason is that technologies typically used in the field area of BAS provide limited network bandwidth. With the introduction of smart cameras, advanced image and on-the-spot pattern recognition become possible. As a result, it is no longer required to transmit a continuous video stream, since it is sufficient to inform client(s) only in case a suspicious event has happened. Since a simple notification (e.g., an alarm signal or a snapshot of the detected event) needs less network bandwidth, an integration into an existing BAS becomes feasible. Still, current BAS technologies do not provide native support for CCTV applications. For this reason, this paper presents an extension to the ZigBee Home Automation Profile. The feasibility of the proposed concept is underlined by a proof-of-concept implementation.