VIDEO AND AUDIO CONTENT ANALYSIS SYSTEM

• US 20080144887A1
• Filed: 02/04/2008
• Published: 06/19/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qognify Ltd. (PSBU Midco SARL)
• Original Assignee: Nice Systems Limited (Nice Ltd)
• Inventors: Girmonski, Doron, Katzman, Yehuda, Sharoni, David, Katz, Hagai
• Granted Patent: US 7,532,744 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19645 Multiple cameras, each having view on one of a plurality of scenes, e.g. multiple cameras for multi-room surveillance or for tracking an object by view hand-over
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19697 Arrangements wherein non-video detectors generate an alarm themselves

Abstract

The present invention is directed to various methods and systems for analysis and processing of video and audio signals from a plurality of sources in real-time or off-line. According to some embodiments of the present invention, analysis and processing applications are dynamically installed in the processing units.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

an application bank of content-analysis applications;

two or more video processing units having one or more of the content-analysis applications installed therein, each of the video processing units coupled to a respective video sensor and receives video data from the video sensor over Internet Protocol (IP); and

a control unit having installed therein a set of rules, the control unit coupled to the video processing units and to the application bank,

wherein upon receiving a notification from one of the video processing units that one of the applications installed therein detects a first predefined condition based on content-analysis processing of at least a portion of the video data, the control unit automatically instructs the application bank to install in real-time, at least another one of the content-analysis applications into at least one of the processing units based on the set of rules.

2. The system of claim 1 comprising:

An audio processing unit coupled to an audio sensor having one or more of the content-analysis applications installed therein, the audio processing unit coupled to a respective audio sensor and receives audio data from the audio sensor over Internet Protocol (IP).

3. The system of claim 2, wherein upon receiving a notification from the audio processing unit that one of the applications installed therein detects a predefined condition based on content-analysis processing of at least a portion of the audio data, the control unit automatically instructs the application bank to install in real-time, at least another one of the content-analysis applications into at least one of the processing units based on the set of rules.

4. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

at least one additional processing unit coupled to a sensor, the sensor being a smoke sensor, a fire sensor, a motion detector, a sound detector, a presence sensor, a movement sensor, a volume sensor or a glass breakage sensor.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the application bank includes at least two of a video movement-detecting application, a video based people counting application, a face detection and recognition application, a voice detection and recognition application, an object detection application or a recognition and surveillance application.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the application bank further comprises at least a conversion of speech to text application or a video compression application.

7. The system of claim 1 further comprising a database to store indexing data associated with the video data.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the application bank, the control unit and the processing units are all coupled via a local area or a wide area network.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the video processing units are embedded in the video sensors.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein upon receiving another notification from one of the video processing units that one of the applications installed therein detects a second predefined condition based on content-analysis processing of at least a portion of the video data, the control unit automatically instructs one of the processing units to activate or deactivate one of the content-analysis applications already installed therein.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein one of the rules is to install a face recognition application upon detection of a movement.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein one of the rules is to install a video compression application upon identification of a particular person.

13. The system of claim 2, wherein one of the rules is to install a face recognition application upon identification of the voice of a particular person.

14. A method comprising:

storing post-alert action rules in a control unit;

delivering video data over Internet Protocol (IP) to two or more processing units having one or more content-analysis applications installed therein, wherein each of the video processing units receives the video data from a respective video sensor;

detecting a first predefined condition based on content-analysis processing of at least a portion of a video data;

sending a notification to the control unit that the predefined condition was detected; and

automatically, instructing to install in real-time at least another content-analysis application into at least one of video processing units from an application bank external to the processing units based on at least one of the post-alert action rules.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

delivering audio data over Internet Protocol (IP) to the processing units; and

detecting a second predefined condition based on content-analysis processing of at least a portion of the audio data;

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

recording at least a portion of the video or audio data.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

providing to a client computer recorded data upon receiving a request from the client computer;

18. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

providing to a client computer a real-time stream of video data, audio data or a combination thereof upon receiving a request from the client computer.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

providing to a client computer a real-time stream of video data, audio data or a combination thereof according to a predetermined time-based schedule.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein providing said real-time data comprises providing synchronized video data received from at least two sensors.

21. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

storing results of the content-analysis processing.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the results comprises number of people counted by a people counting application.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the results comprises an identifier associated with a voice recognized by a voice recognition application.

24. The method of claim 21, wherein the results comprises an identifier associated with a face recognized by a face recognition application.