MONITORING CAMERA DEVICE, MONITORING SYSTEM USING THE SAME, AND MONITORING IMAGE TRANSMISSION METHOD

• US 20090135252A1
• Filed: 02/06/2006
• Published: 05/28/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Matsuda, Keisuke, Ogino, Ryoji, Higuchi, Manabu
• Application Number:
  US11/720,212
• Publication Number:
  US 20090135252A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/143
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19656 Network used to communicate with a camera, e.g. WAN, LAN, Internet
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19663 Surveillance related processing done local to the camera
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/185 from a mobile camera, e.g. for remote control

Abstract

The invention includes an imaging unit for taking the image of a subject as the object of monitoring, a moving image extracting unit for extracting image data of each frame in every specific frame period from this image data, a motion image encoder for generating motion image data by compressing and coding the extracted image data, a change detecting unit for issuing a change detection signal showing a change in the subject, and a transport processing unit for processing data transport by changing over at least two types of communication protocols depending on the change detection signal. The transport processing unit transports the motion image data to a monitor terminal device through a network according to connection-less type communication protocol when the change detection signal shows no change, or according to connection type communication protocol when showing presence of change.

Claims

1. A monitor camera device of a monitoring system for monitoring a remote place by transporting image data for monitoring taken by a monitor camera device to a monitor terminal device through a network of communication network, comprising:

an imaging unit for taking the image of a subject as the object of monitoring, and generating the image data of the taken subject in a specific frame period, a moving image extracting unit for extracting image data of each frame in every specific frame period from the image data of specific frame period generated in the imaging unit,

a motion image encoder for generating motion image data as compressed and coded image data by compressing and coding the image data extracted in the moving image extracting unit, according to still image compressing and coding system, or moving image compressing and coding system,

a change detecting unit for detecting a change in the subject on the basis of the image data, and issuing the detected result as a change detection signal, and

a transport processing unit for processing data transport by changing over the processing means of transport protocol selectively depending on the change detection signal, for transporting the data to a monitor terminal device through a network, between processing means based on connection type communication protocol requiring establishment of connection between mutual communications and processing means based on connection-less type communication protocol not requiring establishment of connection between mutual communications,

wherein the transport processing unit transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder, when the change detection data shows no change, to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection-less type communication protocol, and transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder, when the change detection data shows presence of change, to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection type communication protocol.

2. The monitor camera device of claim 1,

wherein the transport processing unit transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder, when the change detection data shows no change, to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection-less type communication protocol,

and transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder, when the change detection data shows presence of change, to the monitor terminal device through the network in parallel according to connection-less type communication protocol and connection type communication protocol.

3. The monitor camera device of claim 1, further comprising:

a still image extracting unit for extracting image data in an arbitrary frame from the image data in specific frame period generated in the imaging unit, and

a still image encoder for compressing and coding the image data extracted in the still image extracting unit according to still image compressing and coding system, and generating still image data as compressed and coded image data,

wherein the transport processing unit transports the still image data generated in the still image encoder to the monitor network device through the network according to connection type protocol, and

transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder to the monitor network device through the network according to connection-less type protocol when the change detection data shows no change, or

transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection type communication protocol when the change detection data shows presence of change.

4. The monitor camera device of claim 3,

wherein the transport processing unit transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder, when the change detection data shows no change, to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection-less type communication protocol, and

transports the still image data generated in the still image encoder, when the change detection data shows presence of change, to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection type communication protocol, and transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection type communication protocol.

5. The monitor camera device of claim 3,

wherein the image by the still image data generated in the still image encoder is higher in resolution than the image by the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder.

6. The monitor camera device of claim 3,

wherein the still image extracting unit extracts an image corresponding to one block out of image of plural blocks of the image of the image data from the imaging unit divided into plural blocks.

7. The monitor camera device of claim 6,

wherein the change detection unit detects the change in each block of the image by the image data divided into plural blocks, notices the change detection signal showing presence of change when the changed blocks exceed a specified rate to the transport processing unit, and notices the information of the block of the largest change to the still image extracting unit, and

the still image extracting unit extracts the image of the block of the largest change, depending on the information of the block of the largest change from the change detection unit.

8. The monitor camera device of claim 1, further comprising:

a network monitoring unit for monitoring the transport load state depending on the status of the network, and noticing the network information based on monitoring to the motion image encoder,

wherein the motion image encoder selects the moving image compressing and coding system or the still image compressing and coding system depending on the network information from the network monitoring unit, and supplies the motion image data generated in the selected compressing and coding system to the transport processing unit.

9. The monitor camera device of claim 1,

wherein the change detection unit detects the change in the subject based on the motion information showing the motion of the image data corresponding to the image taken by the imaging unit.

10. The monitor camera device of claim 9,

wherein the motion information is the motion vector generated in the moving image compressing and coding system in the motion image encoder.

11. The monitor camera device of claim 9,

wherein the motion information is the information generated according to the frame differential value of image data corresponding to the image taken by the imaging unit.

12. The monitor camera device of claim 9,

wherein the change detection unit detects the change in the subject based on the sensing signal supplied from the sensor provided outside together with the motion information.

13. The monitor camera device of claim 12, further comprising:

a recording and reproducing unit for recording data into a recording medium, and reading out the recorded data,

wherein the recording and reproducing unit records at least one image data of still image data and motion image data, depending on the change detection signal.

14. The monitor camera device of claim 13, further comprising:

an alarm processing unit for editing the information about the change detected in the change detection unit as alarm information,

wherein the recording and reproducing unit records the alarm information, together with the image data, depending on the change detection signal.

15. The monitor camera device of claim 1,

wherein the connection-less type communication protocol is the UDP, one of the protocols not requiring establishment of connection between mutual communications in data transport, and

the connection type communication protocol is the TCP, one of the protocols requiring establishment of connection between mutual communications in data transport.

16. The monitor camera device of claim 1,

wherein the still image compressing and coding system is the intra-frame compressing and coding system of compressing and coding by using image data in one frame, and the moving image compressing and coding system is the inter-frame compressing and coding system of compressing and coding by using image data in one frame, and compressing and coding image data between adjacent frames.

17. The monitor camera device of claim 16,

wherein the still image compressing and coding system is a system conforming to the image coding standard of JPEG system, and the moving image compressing and coding system is a system conforming to the image coding standard of MPEG4 system.

18. A monitoring system comprising a monitor camera device for generating image data for monitoring, a network as communication network for transporting the image for monitoring, and a monitor terminal device for receiving and reproducing the image data for monitoring transported through the network,

wherein the monitor camera device comprises:

an imaging unit for taking the image of a subject as the object of monitoring, and generating the image data of the taken subject in a specific frame period, a moving image extracting unit for extracting image data of each frame in every specific frame period from the image data of specific frame period generated in the imaging unit,

a motion image encoder for generating motion image data as compressed and coded mage data by compressing and coding the image data extracted in the moving image extracting unit, according to still image compressing and coding system, or moving image compressing and coding system,

a change detecting unit for detecting a change in the subject on the basis of the image data, and issuing the detected result as a change detection signal, and

a transport processing unit for processing data transport by changing over the processing means of transport protocol selectively depending on the change detection signal, for transporting the data to a monitor terminal device through a network, between processing means based on connection type communication protocol requiring establishment of connection between mutual communications and processing means based on connection-less type communication protocol not requiring establishment of connection between mutual communications,

wherein the transport processing unit transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder, when the change detection data shows no change, to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection-less type communication protocol, and

transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder, when the change detection data shows presence of change, to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection type communication protocol.

19. A monitoring image transport method of a monitoring system for monitoring a remote place by transporting image data for monitoring taken by a monitor camera device to a monitor terminal device through a network of communication network, comprising:

a step of taking the image of a subject as the object of monitoring, and extracting image data of each frame in every specific frame period from the image data of specific frame period of an imaging unit for generating image data of the taken subject image in specific frame period,

a step of generating motion image data as compressed and coded image data by compressing and coding the image data extracted in the moving image extracting unit, according to still image compressing and coding system, or moving image compressing and coding system,

a step of detecting a change in the subject on the basis of the image data, and issuing the detected result as a change detection signal, and

a step of processing data transport by changing over the transport protocol selectively depending on the change detection signal, for transporting the data to a monitor terminal device through a network, between process based on connection type communication protocol requiring establishment of connection between mutual communications and process based on connection-less type communication protocol not requiring establishment of connection between mutual communications,

wherein the data transport processing step transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder, when the change detection data shows no change, to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection-less type communication protocol, and transports the motion image data generated in the motion image encoder, when the change detection data shows presence of change, to the monitor terminal device through the network according to connection type communication protocol.