APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR VIDEO ALARM VERIFICATION

• US 20090022362A1
• Filed: 07/16/2008
• Published: 01/22/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CheckVideo, LLC (Kastle Systems International LLC)
• Original Assignee: CheckVideo, LLC (Kastle Systems International LLC)
• Inventors: Robertson, Philip Allen, Gagvani, Nikhil
• Granted Patent: US 8,804,997 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30196 Human being; Person
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/254 involving subtraction of images
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/41 Higher-level, semantic clustering, classification or understanding of video scenes, e.g. detection, labelling or Markovian modelling of sport events or news items segmenting video sequences G06V20/49
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/44 Event detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19615 wherein said pattern is defined by the user
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19663 Surveillance related processing done local to the camera
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19667 Details realated to data compression, encryption or encoding, e.g. resolution modes for reducing data volume to lower transmission bandwidth or memory requirements
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/1968 Interfaces for setting up or customising the system
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19684 Portable terminal, e.g. mobile phone, used for viewing video remotely
• 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: G08B 25/001 Alarm cancelling procedures or alarm forwarding decisions, e.g. based on absence of alarm confirmation
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 29/185 Signal analysis techniques for reducing or preventing false alarms or for enhancing the reliability of the system

Abstract

A method for verification of alarms is disclosed. The method involves receiving an alarm signal trigger associated with an alarm signal, receiving video data from a premise associated with the alarm signal, rapidly analyzing the video data to test for the existence a significant event, and when a significant event exists, sending a representation of a segment of interest of the video data, the segment of interest being associated with the significant event, to a user.

Claims

1. A method for authenticating an alarm, comprising:

receiving from an alarm sensor at a monitored premise an alarm signal associated with a potential significant event at the monitored premise;

receiving from the monitored premise video data from a video source associated with the alarm sensor; and

conducting video analytics on the video data to determine whether or not the potential significant event exists.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising, upon determining that the significant event exists, sending to a recipient a representation of a segment of interest of the video data associated with the significant event.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the alarm sensor is selected from the group consisting of a motion sensor, a glass breakage sensor, a door contact sensor, a window contact sensor, an infrared sensor, a sound sensor, a pressure sensor, a tension sensor, a magnetic sensor, a temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, and a fire or smoke sensor.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the alarm signal sensor is selected from the group consisting of an electronic access control system output, a security keypad, and a biometric identification system.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, upon determining that the significant event exists:

consulting a profile for routing instructions; and

sending to a recipient a representation of a segment of interest of the video data associated with the significant event according to the routing instructions.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the conducting video analytics includes consulting a profile to determine parameters for use in the video analytics.

7. A system for verifying alarms, comprising:

a video analytics module configured to analyze video data received from a video source associated with a monitored premise and to verify an alarm condition at the monitored premise in response to receipt of an alarm signal;

an alert module configured to receive from the video analytics module a confirmation of an alarm condition and to generate for transmission to a recipient an alert regarding the alarm condition; and

a profile including parameters for operation of the video analytics module and the alert module.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the profile includes parameters including for temporal variance of the operation of the alert module based on one or more of time of day and day of the week.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the profile includes parameters for varying the operation of the alert module based on the results of the operation of the video analytics module.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the video analytics module is configured to perform hierarchical analysis of the video data from the monitored premise by executing a user-defined process flow stored in the profile to verify and to classify the an alarm condition.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the video analytics module is configured to perform hierarchical analysis of the video data from the monitored premise by executing a user-defined process flow stored in the profile to identify a person, and upon identification, to test an authorization level associated with the person against any detected motion or entry.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the alert module is configured to select a recipient for receipt of the alert, the selection being based on an associated pre-defined verified alarm condition provided by the video analytics module as specified in the profile, and to cause the alert to be sent to the selected recipient.

13. The system of claim 7, wherein the profile is configured to provide the video analytics module with information specifying a degree of video analysis to be performed on the video, based on the nature of the alarm signal received.

14. The system of claim 7, wherein the profile includes information specifying that the video analytics module initially perform a rough analysis to detect the presence of or movement by non-trivially sized objects, and further to specify that when presence of or movement by non-trivially sized objects is detected during a particular time period, to conduct a more refined analysis.

15. The system of claim 7, wherein the profile includes one or more parameters to specify that the alert module generate an alert having a particular alert format based on the identity of the recipient of the alert.

16. The system of claim 7, wherein the profile includes one or more parameters to specify that the alert module generate an alert containing video data of the monitored premise associated with a time period including one or more of a time preceding the time of an alarm signal and a time subsequent to receiving an alarm signal.

17. The system of claim 7, wherein the profile includes one or more parameters to specify that the video analytics module recognize a verified alarm condition as an emergency situation and to specific that upon the recognition of an emergency situation to specify that the alert module generate an alert containing video of the monitored premise corresponding to time immediately preceding receiving an alarm signal trigger for transmission directly to one or more of a law enforcement authority and a centralized security station of a security service provider.

18. The system of claim 7, wherein the profile includes one or more parameters to specify that the alert module generate an alert containing video information that is one or more of compressed or encoded in a specific manner depending on the identity of the recipient of the alert.

19. A method for providing notification of an alarm condition at a monitored premise, comprising:

receiving at the monitored premise video data from a video source located at the monitored premise;

conducting at the monitored premise video analytics on the video data to determine whether an alarm condition exists;

upon determining that an alarm condition exists, generating at the monitored premise an alert that includes a segment of interest of the video data associated with the alarm condition; and

sending the alert from the monitored premise to a recipient.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the conducting includes evaluating one or more parameters from a profile on which the determination of the existence of an alarm condition is based.

21. The method of claim 19, further comprising receiving an external alarm trigger signal.