Distributed motion detection event processing

• US 20060083305A1
• Filed: 06/20/2005
• Published: 04/20/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Micronas Gmbh (TDK Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Micronas Gmbh (TDK Corporation)
• Inventors: Wang, Yong, Dougherty, James, Zhou, Yaxiong, Qu, Sheng
• Application Number:
  US11/158,368
• Publication Number:
  US 20060083305A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/240.120
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/215 Motion-based segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/223 using block-matching
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/17 the unit being an image region, e.g. an object
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/176 the region being a block, e.g. a macroblock
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/503 involving temporal prediction adaptive coding with adaptive selection between spatial and temporal predictive coding H04N19/107; adaptive coding with adaptive selection among a plurality of temporal predictive coding modes H04N19/109
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/51 Motion estimation or motion compensation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/145 Movement estimation for video coding H04N19/51

Abstract

A motion detection system can detect motion at a macroblock level of granularity and take an action based on the detection of motion or an event in a specified region of interest. The system comprises an ASIC capable of detecting an event in a macroblock of a frame of a video sequence, and an eventing engine for, responsive to the detection of the event by the ASIC, performing an action. Such a system can be configured by a user who provides an input specifying a region of interest on which motion detection should be performed by the motion detection system and a threshold value for determining whether or not motion has occurred in the region of interest.

Claims

1. A motion detection engine, the engine comprising an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) including firmware for performing macroblock-level motion detection on a video sequence.

2. The motion detection engine of claim 1, wherein the ASIC is configured to detect the presence of motion and the amount of motion in a macroblock region of frames of the video sequence.

3. The motion detection engine of claim 2, wherein the ASIC is configured to determine a change in a macroblock of a frame of a video sequence and the macroblock counterpart of a reference frame, and responsive to the change being above a certain threshold, to detect motion in the macroblock.

4. The motion detection engine of claim 1, wherein the ASIC is configured to perform motion detection on a 3-D macroblock.

5. The motion detection engine of claim 1, wherein the ASIC is further configured to perform facial detection on a frame of the video sequence.

6. The motion detection engine of claim 1, wherein the chip is configured to perform motion detection in a macroblock of a frame of the video sequence by simultaneously processing all of the pixels of the macroblock.

7. The motion detection engine of claim 1, wherein the ASIC is configured to perform MPEG compression of the video sequence and to provide motion variables in connection with the compression.

8. The motion detection engine of claim 1, wherein the ASIC is configured to detect motion based on the sum of absolute differences between units of a macroblock of a frame of the video sequence and a macroblock of a reference frame calculated in accordance with the motion estimation stage of MPEG video coding.

9. The motion detection engine of claim 8, wherein the units comprise one of:

pixels or bitmaps.

10. A motion detection system, the system comprising:

an ASIC capable of detecting motion in a macroblock of a frame of a video sequence, and

an eventing engine communicatively coupled to the ASIC, for, responsive to the detection of motion by the ASIC, performing an action.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the ASIC is configured to detect motion responsive to a sensitivity value and a threshold value.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the eventing engine 110 is configured to register an event responsive to the detection of motion a number of times above a threshold during a period of time.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the action comprises generating instructions for manipulating a security camera.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the action comprises streaming the video sequence in real-time to an external server.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the action comprises one selected from the group comprising:

a communication action, a storage action, a reporting action, a device activation action, an additional motion detection/processing action, a multicast/parallel processing action, and a system configuration/application control action.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the ASIC is capable of detecting the presence of motion and the amount of motion in a macroblock region of frames of the video sequence.

17. The system of claim 10, further comprising a communications interface over which the action can be performed.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the input comprises one of an upper coordinate and lower coordinate, and a selection of a portion of a video frame.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the threshold value comprises one of a sum of absolute differences threshold value, a motion vector threshold value, and a sensitivity value.

21. The method of claim 17, further comprising receiving an instruction for an action to be taken responsive to the detection of motion in the region of interest.

18. A method for configuring a motion detection system comprising an ASIC for performing macroblock-addressable motion detection, the method comprising:

receiving an input from a user specifying a region of interest on which motion detection should be performed by the motion detection system; and

receiving a threshold value for defining whether or not motion has occurred in the region of interest.