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

Robust sensor fusion in real maritime surveillance scenarios

8 pages, 14 figures.-- Proceedings of: 13th International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION'2010), Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, Jul 26-29, 2010).This paper presents the design and evaluation of a sensor fusion system for maritime surveillance. The system must exploit the complementary AIS-radar sensing technologies to synthesize a reliable surveillance picture using a highly efficient implementation to operate in dense scenarios. The paper highlights the realistic effects taken into account for robust data combination and system scalability.This work was supported in part by a national project with NUCLEO CC, and research projects CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI, SINPROB, CAM CONTEXTS S2009/TIC-1485 and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad

MIJ2K Optimization using evolutionary multiobjective optimization algorithms

This paper deals with the multiobjective definition of video compression and its optimization. The optimization will be done using NSGA-II, a well-tested and highly accurate algorithm with a high convergence speed developed for solving multiobjective problems. Video compression is defined as a problem including two competing objectives. We try to find a set of optimal, so-called Pareto-optimal solutions, instead of a single optimal solution. The two competing objectives are quality and compression ratio maximization. The optimization will be achieved using a new patent pending codec, called MIJ2K, also outlined in this paper. Video will be compressed with the MIJ2K codec applied to some classical videos used for performance measurement, selected from the Xiph.org Foundation repository. The result of the optimization will be a set of near-optimal encoder parameters. We also present the convergence of NSGA-II with different encoder parameters and discuss the suitability of MOEAs as opposed to classical search-based techniques in this field.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008- 06742-C02-02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, SINPROB, CAM MADRINET S-0505/TIC/0255 and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.publicad

A practical approach for active camera coordination based on a fusion-driven multi-agent system

In this paper, we propose a multi-agent system architecture to manage spatially distributed active (or pan-tilt-zoom) cameras. Traditional video surveillance algorithms are of no use for active cameras, and we have to look at different approaches. Such multi-sensor surveillance systems have to be designed to solve two related problems: data fusion and coordinated sensor-task management. Generally, architectures proposed for the coordinated operation of multiple cameras are based on the centralisation of management decisions at the fusion centre. However, the existence of intelligent sensors capable of decision making brings with it the possibility of conceiving alternative decentralised architectures. This problem is approached by means of a MAS, integrating data fusion as an integral part of the architecture for distributed coordination purposes. This paper presents the MAS architecture and system agents.This work was supported in part by Projects MINECO TEC2012-37832-C02-01, CICYT TEC2011-28626-C02-02 and CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485).Publicad

Distributed Active-Camera Control Architecture Based on Multi-Agent Systems

Proceedings of: 10th Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Salamanca (Spain), 28-30 March 2012 (PAAMS`12)In this contribution a Multi-Agent System architecture is proposed to deal with the management of spatially distributed heterogeneous nets of sensors, specially is described the problem of Pan-Tilt-Zoom or active cameras. The design of surveillance multi-sensor systems implies undertaking to solve two related problems: data fusion and coordinated sensor-task management. Generally, proposed architectures for the coordinated operation of multiple sensors are based on centralization of management decisions at the fusion center. However, the existence of intelligent sensors capable of taking decisions brings the possibility of conceiving alternative decentralized architectures. This problem could be approached by means of a Multi-Agent System (MAS). In specific, this paper proposes a MAS architecture for automatically control sensors in video surveillance environments.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/ TIC-1485) and DPS2008- 07029-C02-02.Publicad

MIJ2K: Enhanced video transmission based on conditional replenishment of JPEG2000 tiles with motion compensation

A video compressed as a sequence of JPEG2000 images can achieve the scalability, flexibility, and accessibility that is lacking in current predictive motion-compensated video coding standards. However, streaming JPEG2000-based sequences would consume considerably more bandwidth. With the aim of solving this problem, this paper describes a new patent pending method, called MIJ2K. MIJ2K reduces the inter-frame redundancy present in common JPEG2000 sequences (also called MJP2). We apply a real-time motion detection system to perform conditional tile replenishment. This will significantly reduce the bit rate necessary to transmit JPEG2000 video sequences, also improving their quality. The MIJ2K technique can be used both to improve JPEG2000-based real-time video streaming services or as a new codec for video storage. MIJ2K relies on a fast motion compensation technique, especially designed for real-time video streaming purposes. In particular, we propose transmitting only the tiles that change in each JPEG2000 frame. This paper describes and evaluates the method proposed for real-time tile change detection, as well as the overall MIJ2K architecture. We compare MIJ2K against other intra-frame codecs, like standard Motion JPEG2000, Motion JPEG, and the latest H.264-Intra, comparing performance in terms of compression ratio and video quality, measured by standard peak signal-to-noise ratio, structural similarity and visual quality metric metrics.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008– 06742-C02–02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008–06732-C02–02/TEC, SINPROB, CAM MADRINET S-0505/TIC/0255 and DPS2008–07029-C02–02.Publicad

Multi-camera and Multi-modal Sensor Fusion, an Architecture Overview

Proceedings of: Forth International Workshop on User-Centric Technologies and applications (CONTEXTS 2010). Valencia, 07-10 September , 2010.This paper outlines an architecture formulti-camera andmulti-modal sensor fusion.We define a high-level architecture in which image sensors like standard color, thermal, and time of flight cameras can be fused with high accuracy location systems based on UWB, Wifi, Bluetooth or RFID technologies. This architecture is specially well-suited for indoor environments, where such heterogeneous sensors usually coexists. The main advantage of such a system is that a combined nonredundant output is provided for all the detected targets. The fused output includes in its simplest form the location of each target, including additional features depending of the sensors involved in the target detection, e.g., location plus thermal information. This way, a surveillance or context-aware system obtains more accurate and complete information than only using one kind of technologyThis work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, SINPROB, CAM CONTEXTS S2009/TIC-1485 and DPS2008-07029-C02-02Publicad

Multi-camera Control and Video Transmission Architecture for Distributed Systems

Proceedings of: Workshop on User-Centric Technologies and Applications (CONTEXTS 2011)The increasing number of autonomous systems monitoring and controlling visual sensor networks, make it necessary an homogeneous (deviceindependent), flexible (accessible from various places), and efficient (real-time) access to all their underlying video devices. This paper describes an architecture for camera control and video transmission in a distributed system like existing in a cooperative multi-agent video surveillance scenario. The proposed system enables the access to a limited-access resource (video sensors) in an easy, transparent and efficient way both for local and remote processes. It is particularly suitable for Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras in which a remote control is essential.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI,CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, SINPROB, CAM CONTEXTS S2009/TIC-1485 and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad

Thinger.io: an open source platform for deploying data fusion applications in IoT environments

In The Last Two Decades, Data And Information Fusion Has Experienced Significantdevelopment Due Mainly To Advances In Sensor Technology. The Sensors Provide A Continuousflow Of Data About The Environment In Which They Are Deployed, Which Is Received And Processed Tobuild A Dynamic Estimation Of The Situation. With Current Technology, It Is Relatively Simple To Deploya Set Of Sensors In A Specific Geographic Area, In Order To Have Highly Sensorized Spaces. However, Tobe Able To Fusion And Process The Information Coming From The Data Sources Of A Highly Sensorizedspace, It Is Necessary To Solve Certain Problems Inherent To This Type Of Technology. The Challengeis Analogous To What We Can Find In The Field Of The Internet Of Things (Iot). Iot Technology Ischaracterized By Providing The Infrastructure Capacity To Capture, Store, And Process A Huge Amountof Heterogeneous Sensor Data (In Most Cases, From Different Manufacturers), In The Same Way That Itoccurs In Data Fusion Applications. This Work Is Not Simple, Mainly Due To The Fact That There Is Nostandardization Of The Technologies Involved (Especially Within The Communication Protocols Usedby The Connectable Sensors). The Solutions That We Can Find Today Are Proprietary Solutions Thatimply An Important Dependence And A High Cost. The Aim Of This Paper Is To Present A New Opensource Platform With Capabilities For The Collection, Management And Analysis Of A Huge Amount Ofheterogeneous Sensor Data. In Addition, This Platform Allows The Use Of Hardware-Agnostic In A Highlyscalable And Cost-Effective Manner. This Platform Is Called Thinger.Io. One Of The Main Characteristicsof Thinger.Io Is The Ability To Model Sensorized Environments Through A High Level Language Thatallows A Simple And Easy Implementation Of Data Fusion Applications, As We Will Show In This Paper.This work was funded by public research projects of Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity (MINECO), references TEC2017-88048-C2-2-R, TEC2014-57022-C2-2-RRTC-2016-5595-2, RTC-2016-5191-8 and RTC-2016-5059-8