System and method for video surveillance of a forest

• US 10,178,353 B2
• Filed: 05/05/2017
• Issued: 01/08/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Limited Liability Company "DiSiCon"
• Original Assignee: Limited Liability Company "DiSiCon"
• Inventors: Shishalov, Ivan Sergeevich, Gromazin, Oleg Andreevich, Solovyev, Yaroslav Sergeevich, Romanenko, Aleksandr Vladimirovich, Esin, Ivan Vasiilevich
• Primary Examiner(s): Diep, Nhon T
• Application Number:
  US15/587,445
• Publication Number:
  US 20170244935A1
• Time in Patent Office: 613 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 17/34 Sun- or astro-compasses
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 17/005 for forest fires, e.g. detecting fires spread over a large or outdoors area fire fighting forest fires A62C3/02
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 17/125 by using a video camera to detect fire or smoke
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/69 Control of means for changing angle of the field of view, e.g. optical zoom objectives or electronic zooming
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/18 Closed-circuit television [CCTV] systems, i.e. systems in which the video signal is not broadcast
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

The invention relates to the forest video monitoring. A method and system are provided for automatically binding a video camera to the absolute coordinate system and determining changes in the video camera binding. In one aspect, the method comprises the steps of: in each of at least two predetermined time moments, aiming the video camera at an object a position of which in the absolute coordinate system centered in a point in which the video camera resides is known at said moment, and determining an orientation of the video camera in a native coordinate system of the video camera; and, based on the determined orientations of the video camera and positions of the object, calculating a rotation of the native coordinate system of the video camera in the absolute coordinate system. The calculated rotation of the video camera'"'"'s native coordinate system is used to recalculate coordinates of an observed object from the video camera'"'"'s native coordinate system into the absolute coordinate system. The technical result relates to the improved accuracy of locating the observed object.

Claims

1. The forest fire video monitoring system comprising:

at least one remotely controlled video monitoring point which includes a high-rise building and the transmitting side equipment located on the high-rise building, comprising a video camera on a rotating device and a camera control unit configured to determine the current spatial orientation of the video camera in the inherent coordinate system of the camera,

at least one computer-assisted operator workstation for the operation of the said video monitoring point, and

a storing device for storing the orientations of the video camera in the video camera'"'"'s inherent coordinate systems, defined by the camera control unit after pointing the video camera at each of at least two distinct specified fixed objects on the terrain, and

a computer-integrated module configured;

to get, for each object of these objects, the current orientation of the video camera'"'"'s inherent coordinate system, defined by the camera control unit after re-pointing camera at the object, and

based on the current orientation of the video camera and the corresponding stored orientations of the video camera, to calculate the rotation of the video camera inherent coordinate system.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-integrated module is further configured, when comparing the current orientation of the camera, pointed at the observed object with the stored video camera orientation pointed to a previously analyzed object, to adjust this stored orientation of the camera on the basis of the calculated rotation of the video camera'"'"'s inherent coordinate system.

3. In a forest fire video monitoring system comprising at least one remotely controlled video monitoring point including:

a video camera with a rotating device residing on a high-rise construction; and

a camera control unit configured to determine a current spatial orientation of the video camera in a native coordinate system of the video camera, a method for determining changes in binding of the video camera, the method comprising the steps of;

aiming the video camera at each of at least two predetermined discernible still objects in the terrain, and determining an orientation of the video camera in the native coordinate system of the video camera;

storing the determined orientations of the video camera;

for each of said objects;

aiming the video camera according to the stored orientation of the video camera corresponding to said object, and, in case of deviation of the video camera from the object, re-aiming the video camera at the object, and

determining a current orientation of the video camera in the native coordinate system of the video camera; and

based on the determined current orientations of the video camera and the respective stored orientations of the video camera, calculating a rotation of the native coordinate system of the video camera.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein when comparing the current orientation of the camera, pointed at the observed object with the stored orientation of the video camera when it is pointed to a previously analyzed object, they correct this stored orientation of the video camera based on the calculated rotation of the video camera'"'"'s inherent coordinate system.