Recent advances in video analytics for rail network surveillance for security, trespass and suicide prevention— a survey

Railway networks systems are by design open and accessible to people, but this presents challenges in the prevention of events such as terrorism, trespass, and suicide fatalities. With the rapid advancement of machine learning, numerous computer vision methods have been developed in closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance systems for the purposes of managing public spaces. These methods are built based on multiple types of sensors and are designed to automatically detect static objects and unexpected events, monitor people, and prevent potential dangers. This survey focuses on recently developed CCTV surveillance methods for rail networks, discusses the challenges they face, their advantages and disadvantages and a vision for future railway surveillance systems. State-of-the-art methods for object detection and behaviour recognition applied to rail network surveillance systems are introduced, and the ethics of handling personal data and the use of automated systems are also considered

TECHNOLOGICAL ENTHUSIASM AS A DISTINCTIVE ELEMENT FOR ADOPTING SEMI AND FULLY AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

Smart cities rely on digital technologies that might be questionably acceptable among the population due to their newness. Millennials as a generation that was born into the setting featuring smart technologies seem to be an appropriate focus group for understanding the attitudes towards these technologies. Given that autonomous vehicles (AV) are the future mobility service in smart cities, an important question regarding their adoption arises. Previous research has shown that technological enthusiasm is an important factor for adopting new technologies. The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine the attitude of millennials towards semi- and fully AV. AV trust, AV concerns, AV benefits, AV safety and AV data sharing have been shown to be additional factors that are important in addressing AV adoption. Besides, statistically significant differences between the groups, namely technologically more enthusiastic and technologically less enthusiastic, were identified and further analysed

Tecnología para Tiendas Inteligentes

Trabajo de Fin de Grado en Doble Grado en Ingeniería Informática y Matemáticas, Facultad de Informática UCM, Departamento de Ingeniería del Software e Inteligencia Artificial, Curso 2020/2021Smart stores technologies exemplify how Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things can effectively join forces to shape the future of retailing. With an increasing number of companies proposing and implementing their own smart store concepts, such as Amazon Go or Tao Cafe, a new field is clearly emerging. Since the technologies used to build their infrastructure offer significant competitive advantages, companies are not publicly sharing their own designs. For this reason, this work presents a new smart store model named Mercury, which aims to take the edge off of the lack of public and accessible information and research documents in this field. We do not only introduce a comprehensive smart store model, but also work-through a feasible detailed implementation so that anyone can build their own system upon it.Las tecnologías utilizadas en las tiendas inteligentes ejemplifican cómo la Inteligencia Artificial y el Internet de las Cosas pueden unir, de manera efectiva, fuerzas para transformar el futuro de la venta al por menor. Con un creciente número de empresas proponiendo e implementando sus propios conceptos de tiendas inteligentes, como Amazon Go o Tao Cafe, un nuevo campo está claramente emergiendo. Debido a que las tecnologías utilizadas para construir sus infraestructuras ofrecen una importante ventaja competitiva, las empresas no están compartiendo públicamente sus diseños. Por esta razón, este trabajo presenta un nuevo modelo de tienda inteligente llamado Mercury, que tiene como objetivo mitigar la falta de información pública y accesible en este campo. No solo introduciremos un modelo general y completo de tienda inteligente, sino que también proponemos una implementación detallada y concreta para que cualquier persona pueda construir su propia tienda inteligente siguiendo nuestro modelo.Depto. de Ingeniería de Software e Inteligencia Artificial (ISIA)Fac. de InformáticaTRUEunpu

Arquitectura para la gestión y coordinación de sistemas multisensor

Hoy en día podemos encontrarnos con numerosos entornos que cuentan con un gran conjunto de sensores heterogéneos espacialmente distribuidos. Entornos que pueden ir desde sistemas de vigilancia que incluyen un despliegue de múltiples sensores como cámaras o sensores de localización, a entornos de monitorización de procesos industriales, donde se supervisa cada uno de los procesos para comprobar el correcto funcionamiento del sistema. Inclusive actualmente podemos hablar de términos más modernos como el de Smart Cities que permiten la optimización de los recursos de una ciudad a través de su constante monitorización. En todos estos entornos es común encontrarnos con multitud de sensores percibiendo información del entorno. Estos entornos son de indudable utilidad en cada uno de sus ámbitos, y según avanza la tecnología podemos mejorarlos con la integración de más y mejores sensores. Esto resulta de utilidad porque nos permite monitorizar con más precisión y calidad las diferentes entidades o parámetros del entorno. Sin embargo esto puede suponer un problema a la hora de gestionar y coordinar diferentes tareas sobre el entorno, debido principalmente a la gran cantidad de información generada que tiene que ser analizada. En este sentido, la fusión de datos se volverá un aliado indispensable para mejorar los procesos de análisis y toma de decisiones. En estos entornos además podemos encontrarnos con sensores u actuadores que pueden requerir de cierta gestión, como por ejemplo el manejo de una cámara PTZ para monitorizar regiones o entidades de interés del entorno. Esta gestión se puede hacer de manera manual a través de un operador humano, pero puede convertirse en una tarea compleja cuando contamos con multitud de sensores similares que puedan requerir una gestión coordinada. En este sentido, en la tesis se abordará este problema de gestión y coordinación desde el punto de vista de un sistema multi-agente. Para ello diseñaremos una arquitectura general, que podrá ser aplicada a diferentes casos de uso. Sobre este diseño, evaluaremos su aplicación a dos entornos diferentes. El primer entorno consistirá en un sistema de vigilancia multi-cámara, donde será necesario realizar un control autónomo de las cámaras PTZ para monitorizar las diferentes entidades de interés. El segundo entorno se desarrollará sobre un sistema de vigilancia marítima, donde además de las cámaras podremos contar con otro tipo de sensores como radares o estaciones AIS. La experimentación llevada a cabo en esta tesis a través de la aplicación multi-cámara, ha permitido evaluar la arquitectura desde el punto de vista de la integración en un entornoreal. La aplicación sobre el entorno marítimo, en este caso desarrollado sobre un entorno simulado, nos ha permitido además evaluar la adecuación de de la arquitectura a diferentes sensores e información de las entidades. En ambos casos hemos podido observar la utilidad del sistema multi-agente desarrollado, así como su adecuación a este tipo de entornos, que dada su naturaleza son inherentemente distribuidos.Nowadays it is common to find several heterogeneous sensors spatially distributed in environments. Environments that can range from surveillance systems that include a set of multiple sensors such as cameras or location sensors. To environments monitoring industrial processes, where it is important to monitor several processes to ensure a proper system operation. Moreover we can talk about more modern terms as Smart Cities, which allow optimizing the city resources through its constant monitoring. Thus, in all those deployments, it is common to find multiple sensors perceiving information from the environment. These environments are undoubtedly useful in each of their fields, and as technology advances, we can improve the integration of more and better sensors. This is useful because it allows a better and more accurately monitoring of the different entities or environmental parameters. However this can be a problem when it comes to managing and coordinating different tasks over the environment, mainly due to the large amount of information generated required to be analyzed. In this sense, data fusion will become an indispensable ally to improve the analysis and decision making processes. Moreover, in these environments we can find multiple sensors or actuators that may require some kind of management, such as managing a PTZ camera to monitor regions or entities of interest. This management can be done manually by a human operator, but can become a complex task when we have multiple sensors requiring a coordinated management. In this sense, this thesis tackle the problem of multi-sensor management and coordination from the point of view of a multi-agent system. It is proposed a general multi-agent design that can be applied to different use cases. This design will be evaluated in two different environments. The first one will consist on a multi-camera surveillance system, where the multi-agent system must achieve an autonomous control of PTZ cameras to monitor different entities of interest. The second environment will rely on a maritime surveillance system, where in addition to the cameras, we will introduce other sensor types such as radar or AIS stations. Some experiments were carried out to evaluate the multi-agent system designed. The experiments done in the multi-camera application, allowed us to evaluate the architecture from the point of view of its integration in a real environment. Meanwhile the application in the maritime environment, developed over a simulated environment, let us evaluate the suitability of the architecture to different sensors and information. In both cases we have been able to observe the usefulness of the developed multi-agent system and its adaptation to these environments inherently distributed.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología InformáticaPresidente: María Araceli Sanchís de Miguel.- Vocal: Javier Bajo Pérez.- Secretario: Ángel Arroyo Castill

An evaluation of closed-circuit television surveillance as a crime prevention measure in Windhoek, Namibia

The aim of this research study was to evaluate the effectiveness of CCTV surveillance system and measure the benefits it provides to residents of Windhoek. CCTV is a security control measure which is used by law enforcement bodies to detect and reduce crime. Although crime such as theft out of motor vehicles, ATM fraud, cellphone/bag snatching and robbery were reported to have been reduced in some parts of Windhoek after the system was installed, public perceptions towards the system remained worrisome. The study followed a qualitative method in collecting and analyzing data from various sources. Due to limited coverage of CCTV cameras in Windhoek, the researcher chose a non-probability sampling, targeting residents that are familiar with the system. The researcher assessed strategies and approaches applied by the police and private security companies when making use of CCTV to combating crime.Criminology and Security ScienceM.A. (Security Management