Surveillance using both video and audio

Abstract

It is now possible to install cameras monitoring sensitive areas but it may not be possible to assign a security guard to each camera or a set of cameras. In addition, security guards may get tired and watch the monitor in a blank manner without noticing important events taking place in front of their eyes. Current CCTV surveillance systems are mostly based on video and recently intelligent video analysis systems capable of detecting humans and cars were developed for surveillance applications. Such systems mostly use Hidden Markov Models (HMM) or Support Vector Machines (SVM) to reach decisions. They detect important events but they also produce false alarms. It is possible to take advantage of other low cost sensors including audio to reduce the number of false alarms. Most video recording systems have the capability of recording audio as well. Analysis of audio for intelligent information extraction is a relatively new area. Automatic detection of broken glass sounds, car crash sounds, screams, increasing sound level at the background are indicators of important events. By combining the information coming from the audio channel with the information from the video channels, reliable surveillance systems can be built. In this chapter, current state of the art is reviewed and an intelligent surveillance system analyzing both audio and video channels is described.