System and Method of Monitoring the Video Surveillance Activities

• US 20140232873A1
• Filed: 02/20/2013
• Published: 08/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/20/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: MEGANATHAN, Deepak Sundar
• Granted Patent: US 9,218,729 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/152
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04803 Split screen, i.e. subdividing the display area or the window area into separate subareas
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/14 Digital output to display device ; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 1/00 Registering, indicating or recording the time of events or elapsed time, e.g. time-recorders for work people registering or indicating the working of machines or vehicles G07C3/00, G07C5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 3/00 Registering or indicating the condition or the working of machines or other apparatus, other than vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19665 Details related to the storage of video surveillance data television signal recording H04N5/76
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19671 Addition of non-video data, i.e. metadata, to video stream
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19682 Graphic User Interface [GUI] presenting system data to the user, e.g. information on a screen helping a user interacting with an alarm system
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19695 Arrangements wherein non-video detectors start video recording or forwarding but do not generate an alarm themselves
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 19/00 Alarms responsive to two or more different undesired or abnormal conditions, e.g. burglary and fire, abnormal temperature and abnormal rate of flow
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/14 Central alarm receiver or annunciator arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/188 Capturing isolated or intermittent images triggered by the occurrence of a predetermined event, e.g. an object reaching a predetermined position signal generation from motion picture films H04N5/253

Abstract

A method and apparatus. The method includes the steps of an activity analysis processor monitoring the activities of a security system protecting a secured area and a human operator of the security system and evaluating the system'"'"'s and operator'"'"'s activities, the activity analysis processor detecting an event and saving a summary of the event to a cloud server, a user interface of the cloud server detecting a request from a user for a report of activities and the cloud server downloading the activity report to the user, the activity report displayed to the user including playback features controlling playback of the summary, the playback features further including provision to accept requests for additional data from the user and the playback features downloading and displaying the additional data in response to the requests.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

an activity analysis processor monitoring the activities of a security system protecting a secured area and a human operator of the security system and evaluating the system'"'"'s and operator'"'"'s activities within a security system database based upon the deviation, trend, pattern and criticality of each respective activity;

the activity analysis processor detecting an event within the monitored activities and saving a summary of the event to a cloud server or private data server, the summary including one or more of video, image, text, audio, charts, graphs and link to other applications relating to protection of the secured area, the link to other applications including at least clicking on an image of a camera and opening a configuration page of the camera, checking recording parameters of the camera based upon a percentage of total recording space consumed by the camera during a previous week or rechecking a resolution based upon a frames per second, GOP or bitrate setting of the camera;

a user interface of the cloud server or private data server detecting a request from a user for a report of activities reported within a real time timeline window, the activity report including at least a content of the summary of the event associated with the secured area, the activity report further containing one or more of data, actions, warnings, help requests and recommendations generated by the activity analysis processor, wherein each of the data, actions, warnings, help requests and recommendations include one or more of video, image text, audio, charts and graphs, wherein the cloud server updates an internal database of the cloud server in real time based upon posts from the activity analysis processor or operator; and

the cloud server or private data server downloading the activity report to the user, the activity report displayed to the user including playback features controlling playback of the summary, the playback features further including provision to accept requests for additional data from the user and the playback features downloading and displaying the additional data in response to the requests, wherein the playback controls include at least one of a play control that displays activities in sequence for a selected time, pause, fast forward, step forward, step reverse and jump.

2. The method as in claim 1 further comprising attaching a video clip to the report.

3. The method as in claim 1 wherein the report further comprises generating a list and identifiers of alarms occurring within the timeline window for inclusion in the report.

4. The method as in claim 3 further comprising an identifier of the human operator that responded to each of the alarms of the list.

5. The method as in claim 1 further comprising including trouble indicators within the report.

6. The method as in claim 1 further comprising generating a trend indicator defined by a number of alarms per time period for inclusion in the report.

7. The method as in claim 1 further comprising including comments of the human operator in the report.

22. The method as in claim 1 wherein the playback features further comprise provisions to accept requests for additional data from the user and the playback features downloading and displaying the additional data in response to the requests wherein the playback controls include at least one of:

a first feature including checking an action taken by a selected operator for a selected alarm reported by the system by the user selecting the alarm from an alarm list wherein the first playback feature depicts a summary report showing comments provided by the operator and actions taken by the operator including activating a related device in response to the alarm;

a second feature including the user designating a time and date and the playback feature shows an identifier of an operator monitoring the system on the designated time and date;

a third feature including designating a time and the playback feature showing an operator monitoring the system at that time and for activities of that operator for a previous two hours;

a fourth feature of the user selecting a current time and the playback feature displaying events currently viewed by the current operator;

a fifth feature of the user selecting an operator and playback and the playback feature playing back activities of the selected operator beginning with a most recent activity and proceeding backwards in time for a predetermined time period;

a sixth feature including the user selecting an operator and the playback feature displaying any events of the selected operator logging off before an end of the selected operator'"'"'s shift; and

a seventh feature including the user selecting an alarm flooding feature and the playback feature identifying any events of alarm flooding and activities taken to prevent alarm flooding.

8. An apparatus comprising:

a cloud server;

an activity analysis processor that monitors the activities of a security system protecting a secured area and of a human operator of the security system and that evaluates the system'"'"'s and operator'"'"'s activities within a security system database based upon the deviation, trend, pattern and criticality of each respective activity, the activity analysis processor detects an event within the monitored activities and saves a summary of the event to the cloud server, the summary includes one or more of video, image, text, audio, charts and graphs relating to protection of the secured area;

a user interface of the cloud server that detects a request from a user for a report of activities reported within a real time timeline window, the activity report including at least a content of the summary of the event associated with the secured area, the activity report further containing one or more of data, actions, warnings, help requests and recommendations generated by the activity analysis processor, wherein the cloud server updates an internal database of the cloud server in real time based upon posts from the activity analysis processor or operator; and

an interface processor of the cloud server that downloads the activity report to the user, the activity report displayed to the user further comprises a playback control executing on a processor of the user and that controls playback of the summary, the playback control further including an interface that accepts requests for additional data from the user and the playback control downloads and displays the additional data to the user in response to the requests.

9. The apparatus as in claim 8 wherein the report further comprises a list of alarms that occurred during the timeline window.

10. The apparatus as in claim 9 further comprising an identifier of the operator that responded to each alarm of the list.

11. The apparatus as in claim 8 wherein the playback control further comprises a timeline interface coupled to the user interface of the cloud server that receives a temporal duration of the timeline window from the user.

12. The apparatus as in claim 8 wherein the playback control further comprises a timeline interface coupled to the user interface of the cloud server that receives a starting and ending time of the timeline window from the user.

13. The apparatus as in claim 8 further comprising a video clip attached to the report or additional data identified through the user interface.

14. The apparatus as in claim 13 wherein the playback control further comprises a video interface that controls playback of the video clip based upon inputs from the user.

15. An apparatus comprising:

a cloud server;

a security system that protects a secured area;

a database of the security system;

an activity analysis processor of the security system that monitors the activities of the security system and a human operator of the security system based upon entries within a security system database, the activity analysis processor evaluates the system'"'"'s and operator'"'"'s activities based upon the entries, a criticality of each respective activity and averages of each activity including any deviation, trend or pattern, the activity analysis processor detects events within the monitored activities and saves a summary of the events to the cloud server, the summary includes one or more of video, image, text, audio, charts and graphs relating to protection of the secured area; and

a user interface of the cloud server that detects a request from a user for a report of activities occurring within a real time timeline window and downloads the activity report to the user, the activity report including at least a content of the summary of the event associated with the secured area, the activity report further containing one or more of data, actions, warnings, help requests and recommendations generated by the security system or operator, wherein the cloud server updates an internal database of the cloud server in real time based upon posts from the activity analysis processor or operator.

16. The apparatus as in claim 15 further comprising an interface processor of the cloud server that downloads the activity report to the user.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the activity report displayed to the user further comprises a playback control executing on a processor of the user and that controls playback of the summary, the playback control further including an interface that accepts requests for additional data from the user and the playback control downloads and displays the additional data to the user in response to the requests wherein the playback control allows the user to bookmark the additional data at any time for future reference.

18. The apparatus as in claim 15 wherein the report further comprises a list of alarms reported by the security system and an identifier of a human operator that responded to each alarm.

19. The apparatus as in claim 15 wherein the report further comprises a trouble message generated by the alarm system or a warning request in response to alarms flooding the security system.

20. The apparatus as in claim 15 wherein the report further comprises a request for help from the human operator.

21. The apparatus as in claim 15 wherein the user interface of the cloud server automatically populates a set of posts in realtime to the assigned operator'"'"'s terminal or workstation without receiving a user request, based upon the user logging into his/her workstation and the user interface populates the report with posts related to an assigned area or zone or related to a user profile created by the user to improve the user'"'"'s day to day activity.