INTELLIGENT DISTRIBUTED SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS Dual camera intelligent sensor for high definition 360 degrees surveillance

A novel integrated multi-camera video-sensor (panoramic scene analysis – PSA) system is proposed for surveillance applications. In the proposed set-up, an omnidirectional imaging device is used in conjunction with a pan tilt zoom (PTZ) camera leading to an innovative kind of sensor that is able to automatically track at a higher zoom level any moving object within the guarded area. In particular, the catadioptric sensor is calibrated and used in order to track every single moving object within its 360 degree field of view. Omnidirectional image portions are eventually rectified and pan, tilt and zoom parameters of the moving camera are automatically adjusted by the system in order to track detected objects. In addition a co-operative strategy was developed for the selection of the object to be tracked by the PTZ sensor in the case of multiple targets.