Collaborative Solutions to Visual Sensor Networks

Visual sensor networks (VSNs) merge computer vision, image processing and wireless sensor network disciplines to solve problems in multi-camera applications in large surveillance areas. Although potentially powerful, VSNs also present unique challenges that could hinder their practical deployment because of the unique camera features including the extremely higher data rate, the directional sensing characteristics, and the existence of visual occlusions. In this dissertation, we first present a collaborative approach for target localization in VSNs. Traditionally; the problem is solved by localizing targets at the intersections of the back-projected 2D cones of each target. However, the existence of visual occlusions among targets would generate many false alarms. Instead of resolving the uncertainty about target existence at the intersections, we identify and study the non-occupied areas in 2D cones and generate the so-called certainty map of targets non-existence. We also propose distributed integration of local certainty maps by following a dynamic itinerary where the entire map is progressively clarified. The accuracy of target localization is affected by the existence of faulty nodes in VSNs. Therefore, we present the design of a fault-tolerant localization algorithm that would not only accurately localize targets but also detect the faults in camera orientations, tolerate these errors and further correct them before they cascade. Based on the locations of detected targets in the fault-tolerated final certainty map, we construct a generative image model that estimates the camera orientations, detect inaccuracies and correct them. In order to ensure the required visual coverage to accurately localize targets or tolerate the faulty nodes, we need to calculate the coverage before deploying sensors. Therefore, we derive the closed-form solution for the coverage estimation based on the certainty-based detection model that takes directional sensing of cameras and existence of visual occlusions into account. The effectiveness of the proposed collaborative and fault-tolerant target localization algorithms in localization accuracy as well as fault detection and correction performance has been validated through the results obtained from both simulation and real experiments. In addition, conducted simulation shows extreme consistency with results from theoretical closed-form solution for visual coverage estimation, especially when considering the boundary effect

The Multi-agent Simulation-based Framework for Optimization of Detectors Layout in Public Crowded Places

AbstractIn this work the framework for detectors layout optimization based on a multi-agent simulation is proposed. Its main intention is to provide a decision support team with a tool for automatic design of social threat detection systems for public crowded places. Containing a number of distributed detectors, this system performs detection and an identification of threat carriers. The generic model of detector used in the framework allows to consider detection of various types of threats, e.g. infections, explosives, drugs, radiation. The underlying agent-based models provide data on social mobility, which is used along with a probability based quality assessment model within the optimization process. The implemented multi-criteria optimization scheme is based on a genetic algorithm. For experimental study the framework has been applied in order to get the optimal detectors’ layout in Pulkovo airport

A Survey on Aerial Swarm Robotics

The use of aerial swarms to solve real-world problems has been increasing steadily, accompanied by falling prices and improving performance of communication, sensing, and processing hardware. The commoditization of hardware has reduced unit costs, thereby lowering the barriers to entry to the field of aerial swarm robotics. A key enabling technology for swarms is the family of algorithms that allow the individual members of the swarm to communicate and allocate tasks amongst themselves, plan their trajectories, and coordinate their flight in such a way that the overall objectives of the swarm are achieved efficiently. These algorithms, often organized in a hierarchical fashion, endow the swarm with autonomy at every level, and the role of a human operator can be reduced, in principle, to interactions at a higher level without direct intervention. This technology depends on the clever and innovative application of theoretical tools from control and estimation. This paper reviews the state of the art of these theoretical tools, specifically focusing on how they have been developed for, and applied to, aerial swarms. Aerial swarms differ from swarms of ground-based vehicles in two respects: they operate in a three-dimensional space and the dynamics of individual vehicles adds an extra layer of complexity. We review dynamic modeling and conditions for stability and controllability that are essential in order to achieve cooperative flight and distributed sensing. The main sections of this paper focus on major results covering trajectory generation, task allocation, adversarial control, distributed sensing, monitoring, and mapping. Wherever possible, we indicate how the physics and subsystem technologies of aerial robots are brought to bear on these individual areas

Human Motion Trajectory Prediction: A Survey

With growing numbers of intelligent autonomous systems in human environments, the ability of such systems to perceive, understand and anticipate human behavior becomes increasingly important. Specifically, predicting future positions of dynamic agents and planning considering such predictions are key tasks for self-driving vehicles, service robots and advanced surveillance systems. This paper provides a survey of human motion trajectory prediction. We review, analyze and structure a large selection of work from different communities and propose a taxonomy that categorizes existing methods based on the motion modeling approach and level of contextual information used. We provide an overview of the existing datasets and performance metrics. We discuss limitations of the state of the art and outline directions for further research.Comment: Submitted to the International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), 37 page

Cost-Aware Coalitions for Collaborative Tracking in Resource-Constrained Camera Networks

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. J. C. SanMiguel and A. Cavallaro, "Cost-Aware Coalitions for Collaborative Tracking in Resource-Constrained Camera Networks," in IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 2657-2668, May 2015. doi: 10.1109/JSEN.2014.2367015We propose an approach to create camera coalitions in resource-constrained camera networks and demonstrate it for collaborative target tracking. We cast coalition formation as a decentralized resource allocation process where the best cameras among those viewing a target are assigned to a coalition based on marginal utility theory. A manager is dynamically selected to negotiate with cameras whether they will join the coalition and to coordinate the tracking task. This negotiation is based not only on the utility brought by each camera to the coalition, but also on the associated cost (i.e. additional processing and communication). Experimental results and comparisons using simulations and real data show that the proposed approach outperforms related state-of-the-art methods by improving tracking accuracy in cost-free settings. Moreover, under resource limitations, the proposed approach controls the tradeoff between accuracy and cost, and achieves energy savings with only a minor reduction in accuracy.This work was supported in part by the EU Crowded Environments monitoring for Activity Understanding and Recognition (CEN-TAUR, FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IAPP) Project under GA number 324359, and in part by the Artemis JU and U.K. Technology Strategy Board as part of the Cognitive and Perceptive Cameras (COPCAMS) Project under GA number 332913

A comprehensive survey of multi-view video summarization

[EN] There has been an exponential growth in the amount of visual data on a daily basis acquired from single or multi-view surveillance camera networks. This massive amount of data requires efficient mechanisms such as video summarization to ensure that only significant data are reported and the redundancy is reduced. Multi-view video summarization (MVS) is a less redundant and more concise way of providing information from the video content of all the cameras in the form of either keyframes or video segments. This paper presents an overview of the existing strategies proposed for MVS, including their advantages and drawbacks. Our survey covers the genericsteps in MVS, such as the pre-processing of video data, feature extraction, and post-processing followed by summary generation. We also describe the datasets that are available for the evaluation of MVS. Finally, we examine the major current issues related to MVS and put forward the recommendations for future research(1). (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2019R1A2B5B01070067)Hussain, T.; Muhammad, K.; Ding, W.; Lloret, J.; Baik, SW.; De Albuquerque, VHC. (2021). A comprehensive survey of multi-view video summarization. Pattern Recognition. 109:1-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patcog.2020.10756711510

SpaceNet MVOI: a Multi-View Overhead Imagery Dataset

Detection and segmentation of objects in overheard imagery is a challenging task. The variable density, random orientation, small size, and instance-to-instance heterogeneity of objects in overhead imagery calls for approaches distinct from existing models designed for natural scene datasets. Though new overhead imagery datasets are being developed, they almost universally comprise a single view taken from directly overhead ("at nadir"), failing to address a critical variable: look angle. By contrast, views vary in real-world overhead imagery, particularly in dynamic scenarios such as natural disasters where first looks are often over 40 degrees off-nadir. This represents an important challenge to computer vision methods, as changing view angle adds distortions, alters resolution, and changes lighting. At present, the impact of these perturbations for algorithmic detection and segmentation of objects is untested. To address this problem, we present an open source Multi-View Overhead Imagery dataset, termed SpaceNet MVOI, with 27 unique looks from a broad range of viewing angles (-32.5 degrees to 54.0 degrees). Each of these images cover the same 665 square km geographic extent and are annotated with 126,747 building footprint labels, enabling direct assessment of the impact of viewpoint perturbation on model performance. We benchmark multiple leading segmentation and object detection models on: (1) building detection, (2) generalization to unseen viewing angles and resolutions, and (3) sensitivity of building footprint extraction to changes in resolution. We find that state of the art segmentation and object detection models struggle to identify buildings in off-nadir imagery and generalize poorly to unseen views, presenting an important benchmark to explore the broadly relevant challenge of detecting small, heterogeneous target objects in visually dynamic contexts.Comment: Accepted into IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) 201