Networked digital security system and methods

• US 6,954,859 B1
• Filed: 10/08/1999
• Issued: 10/11/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Axcess, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Axcess, Inc.
• Inventors: Szo-Ho Tang, Thomas, Kay, Alan, Pledger, Philip K., Breton, Keith D., Simerly, Tim W., Dutt, Amer M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Darrow, Justin T.
• Application Number:
  US09/414,712
• Time in Patent Office: 2,195 Days
• Field of Search: 713/201, 348/839, 348/150, 348/154, 348/169, 348/207.99, 709/232, 715/716, 715/719, 725/108, 725/126
• US Class Current: 726/3
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19604 involving reference image or background adaptation with time to compensate for changing conditions, e.g. reference image update on detection of light level change
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19606 Discriminating between target movement or movement in an area of interest and other non-signicative movements, e.g. target movements induced by camera shake or movements of pets, falling leaves, rotating fan
• 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 13/19656 Network used to communicate with a camera, e.g. WAN, LAN, Internet
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19673 Addition of time stamp, i.e. time metadata, to video stream
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/1968 Interfaces for setting up or customising the system
• 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 13/19697 Arrangements wherein non-video detectors generate an alarm themselves
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0604 using filtering, e.g. reduction of information by using priority, element types, position or time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1108 Web based protocols, e.g. webRTC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4223 Cameras H04N23/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44245 Monitoring the upstream path of the transmission network, e.g. its availability, bandwidth
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/185 from a mobile camera, e.g. for remote control
• 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 networked digital security system is disclosed that preferably includes a centralized administrator web server coupled via a communication network such as the Internet to a plurality of customer servers and a plurality of customer work stations. The centralized web server advantageously provides a point of control and management of the networked digital security system. The customer servers and customer work stations are preferably located at the customer'"'"'s monitored sites. The customer servers are coupled to one or more intelligent camera units, which are preferably fully integrated intelligent units that gather, analyze, and transmit video, audio, and associated detected alarm event information to their associated customer server and the administrator web server. The camera units also include an intelligent automatic gain controller, an encoder buffer controller, and a network bandwidth priority controller. The system supports several compression algorithm standards.

Claims

1. A digital security system comprising:

at least one camera unit for capturing and transmitting frames of video and/or audio signals over a communication network, wherein said camera unit is programmable to perform at least one of the following;

to transmit a snap shot, streaming video, or an event clip upon detecting a predefined event, to simultaneously transmit a snap shot, streaming video and an event clip or combinations thereof upon detecting a predefined event, and to detect different predefined events based on the time of day, the camera unit includes a network bandwidth controller that adjusts the signal transmission delay of the camera unit as a function of a network collision rate and priority of the camera unit;

at least one customer server coupled to the camera unit via the communications network;

at least one customer work station coupled to the customer server via the communications network;

an administrator server coupled to the at least one customer server via the communications network, wherein the administrator server receives event packets and associated video and/or audio information, and intelligently routes the event packets and information to one or more administrator work stations; and

authentication means at the administrator server for authenticating a customer at the at least one customer work station so as to allow the work station to receive the video and/or audio signals transmitted by the at least one camera unit.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit transmits video and/or audio signals over the communications network only after detecting a predefined event.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit transmits video and/or audio signals over the communications network in response to receiving a command from a user at the customer work station or at least one administrator work station.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit tags the frames of video and/or audio signals based upon detecting one of a plurality of predefined events.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit transmits at least one event packet when a predefined event is detected.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit is operable in a plurality of modes.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the camera unit may be remotely configured to operate in one of the plurality of modes via the at least one customer work station.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit includes a glass break detector.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the glass break detector includes:

an audio input receiver means, a digital signal processor for computing spectrograms of incoming audio signals, and a means for comparing a predefined glass break spectrogram template against the spectrograms computed by the digital signal processor.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit includes a motion detector that analyzes the video signals captured by the camera unit.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the motion detector comprises a digital signal processor that includes an automatic learn component that automatically updates a stored background image against which the digital signal processor performs motion analysis detection.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the camera unit increases one or more of the bit rate, pixel coding depth, the image size, fame rate, and compression algorithm format associated with the video signals in response to detecting motion in the video signals.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the camera unit includes an object detector.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the camera unit includes an object speed detector.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the camera unit determines whether to transmit an event packet over the network based on the speed of the detected object.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the camera unit includes an object movement detector that detects the direction of movement of a detected object.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the camera unit determines whether to transmit at least one event packet over the network based on what direction the detected object is moving.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the authentication means includes means to compare inputted user identification information against a database of monitored sites to which the user may access.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the administrator server includes means for receiving event packet information from the at least one camera unit, and means for transmitting relevant contact information to one or more administrator work stations.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the administrator server includes means for receiving the event packet information from the at least one camera unit and means for automatically contacting one or more of the local police, local fire department, and customer contact.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit includes:

a camera system;

an encoder coupled to the camera system that encodes the video signals transmitted by the camera system; and

an automatic gain controller coupled to the camera system and the encoder, the automatic gain controller receiving mean, maximum, and minimum intensity video signal values from the camera system, and variance and delta values from the encoder, and providing in response a control signal that controls the gain of the camera system so that the camera unit transmits video signals with substantially constant image luminance for varying lighting conditions.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit includes:

a camera system;

an encoder coupled to the camera system that encodes the video signals transmitted by the camera unit;

an encoder buffer coupled to the encoder; and

an encoder buffer controller coupled to the camera system and the encoder buffer, the encoder buffer controller receiving as inputs an in buffer bit rate input from the encoder, and an out buffer bit rate from the encoder buffer.

23. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit autonomously determines its priority based on the type of predefined event it is experiencing.

24. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit is coupled to a conventional sensor.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the camera unit is configured to receive an alarm signal from the conventional sensor, and to transmit an event packet over the network in response to receiving the alarm signal from the conventional sensor.

26. The System of claim 25, wherein the camera unit starts transmitting video and/or audio signals in response to receiving the alarm signal from the conventional sensor.

27. The system of claim 25, wherein the camera unit changes a characteristic of transmitted video and/or audio signals in response to receiving the alarm signal from the conventional sensor.

28. The system of claim 24, wherein the camera unit performs boolean analysis of an alarm signal sent by the conventional sensor and an event detected by the camera unit before transmitting an event packet over the network.

29. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit simultaneously transmits video signals in more than one compression algorithm standard format in response to detecting certain predefined events.

30. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit simultaneously transmits video signals according to the JPEG format and the H.263 format in response to detecting certain predefined events.

31. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit simultaneously transmits video signals having differing bit rates.

32. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit simultaneously transmits video signals having differing frame rates.

33. The system of claim 1, wherein the camera unit simultaneously transmits video signals having differing pixel coding depths.

34. The system of claim 1, further comprising at least one administrator workstation coupled to the administrator server.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein a graphical user interface is provided at one of the administrator or customer workstations, and wherein the graphical user interface schematically displays event durations for a plurality of camera units.

36. The system of claim 34, wherein the video or audio information schematically represented by the event duration display is accessible by a user clicking on the event duration display.

38. The system of claim 4, wherein the camera unit tags the frames of video and/or audio signals by inserting information in the header of the transmitted frames that identifies the predefined event.

39. The system of claim 5, wherein the event packet includes information in the header of the event packet that identifies the predefined event.

37. The system of 34, wherein the customer and administrator work stations include a multi-algorithm reader that allows the work stations to display successive frames of video signals encoded in different compression algorithm standard formats.