Project HuSIMS

Start date

The need for personal safety and security is rising everywhere: on the street, at home, in school. If we only had a “watchdog” – one that would be everywhere and see everything, one that would raise the appropriate alarm in real time – yet a watchdog that is unobtrusive, doesn’t compromise people’s privacy, doesn’t generate false alarms, and doesn’t cost a lot. Can we dream of such a watchdog? In the HuSIMS project we aim to show that this is indeed feasible.

Concept A dense mesh of visual sensors (“a sensor on every lamppost”) that is sensitive to irregular behavior patterns in the monitored area, and that upon detection of anomalous events can trigger the appropriate emergency action and provide visual notification- all this without compromising personal privacy.

The sensors will be simple, low-resolution, low-cost, low power consumption, easy to install, integrated sensors. They will include camera, processor and communication interface. After a short learning period, each sensor will autonomously identify dangerous or irregular situations: people running, commotion, one person chasing another etc. Once a sensor identifies an alert situation, it will communicate the alert and, upon request, send images for verification. The sensors transmit images only upon demand or when an alert situation is determined, minimizing the bandwidth requirements. Low resolution ensures appropriate trade-off between security and privacy.

A wireless mesh network will connect the sensors to one or more servers, and from there to control rooms and communication devices of police, emergency medical centers, fire departments, etc. The network will be self-organizing and self healing, allow quick addition/removal of sensors and will naturally cope with non-functioning or sabotaged sensors. The network will be based on WiMAX technology. For indoors applications such as hospitals and hotels, we will switch to zigbee + any wire (coax, phone line, power line) approach, to guarantee that the information is transmitted.

A backend control application will handle the inputs from the sensors, perform decision algorithms to produce alerts from multiple sensor inputs, interface with operators and existing software/hardware systems, and forward alerts to other servers / mobile units. The backend application will also interface with emergency units and first responders, will be able to update sensor software versions, demand on-line video streaming, and control additional devices (street illumination, public address systems).