In previous posts, we talked about simple video surveillance systems in business, but now we will talk about projects in which the number of cameras is in the thousands.
Often the difference between the most expensive video surveillance systems and solutions that small and medium-sized businesses can already use is scale and budget. In the absence of restrictions on the cost of the project, you can build the future in a particular region right now.
Solutions in the EU
The shopping complex Galeria Katowicka was opened in 2013 in the center of the Polish city of Katowice. On the territory of 52 thousand mΒ² there are more than 250 shops and offices of companies from the service sector, a modern cinema and an underground parking lot for 1,2 thousand cars. There is also a railway station in the shopping center.
Given the large area, Neinver management company set a difficult task for the contractors: to create a video surveillance system that will completely cover the territory (without blind spots, to prevent various illegal actions, ensure the safety of visitors and the safety of property of trading companies and guests), store data on visitors and keep their count to form individual data on the number of visitors to each store. In this case, the complexity of the project can be safely multiplied by 250 - by the number of observation points. In fact, these are 250 separate subprojects. In our experience, placing even a single visitor counter can be a difficult task when installing equipment without the involvement of specialists.
IP cameras with integrated video analytics were chosen to implement the project. One of the main features of the cameras is the ability to record information even if the connection between the camera and the server is interrupted.
Since the shopping center has a large number of entrances and exits, as well as many trading floors and service rooms, it was necessary to install several cameras in each room.
To ensure maximum quality and signal transmission speed, we chose a combined network option using fiber optic cable and traditional twisted pair. During the installation work, 30 km of cables were laid throughout the building.
When installing the system, the designers encountered some difficulties that required the use of non-standard approaches. Since the main entrance to Galeria Katowicka is shaped like a wide semicircle, the engineers had to install ten cameras at the same time in order to correctly count the incoming visitors. Their work and the incoming video had to be synchronized with each other in order to avoid repeated counts of the same visitor.
The task of interfacing the counting system with the parking monitoring system turned out to be quite difficult: it was necessary to bring the data coming from both systems into a common report without duplicates and in one format.
To monitor and test the performance of the video system, self-diagnosis and testing tools are built in, with the help of which you can obtain visitor data with maximum accuracy and ensure quick equipment repairs.
The system in the Galeria Katowicka shopping center has become the largest commercial automatic people counting complex in Europe.
Oldest video surveillance system in London
In the course of Operation Vedana (that was the name of the Skripal investigation), Scotland Yard officers studied, according to official figures, 11 hours of various video materials. And of course, they had to present the results of their work to the public. This episode perfectly illustrates the scale of a video surveillance system with a virtually unlimited budget.
Without exaggeration, the London security system can be called one of the largest in the world, and this leadership is quite understandable. The first video cameras were installed in 1960 in Trafalgar Square to ensure order during the meeting of the Thai royal family, as a large crowd was expected.
To give you an idea of ββthe enormity of London's video system, here are some impressive numbers provided by the British Security Industry Authority (BSIA) in 2018.
About 642 tracking devices have been installed in London itself, 15 of them in the subway. It turns out that on average there is one camera for 14 residents and visitors of the city, and each person falls into the field of view of the camera lens about 300 times a day.
Two operators are constantly present in the control room to monitor the situation in one of the districts of London.
All data from the cameras goes to a special underground bunker, the location of which is not disclosed. The property is operated by a private company in cooperation with the police and the local council.
In the urban video surveillance system, there are also private, closed systems located, for example, in various shopping centers, cafes, shops, etc. In total, there are about 4 million such systems in the UK - more than in any other country in the West.
According to official figures, the government is spending around Β£2,2 billion to maintain the system. The complex honestly fulfills its "bread" - with its help, the police managed to solve approximately 95% of crimes in the city.
Moscow video surveillance system
Currently, about 170 cameras have been installed in Moscow, of which 101 are in entrances, 20 are in courtyards, and more than 3,6 are in public places.
The cameras are distributed in such a way as to minimize the number of blind spots. If you look around carefully, you will notice that there are control devices almost everywhere (most often at the level of the cut of the roof of houses). Even the intercoms of each entrance of residential buildings are equipped with a camera that captures the face of an incoming person.
All cameras in the city around the clock transmit images via fiber-optic channels to the Unified Data Storage and Processing Center (UCDC) - here is the core of the city's video system, which includes hundreds of servers capable of receiving incoming traffic at speeds up to 120 Gbps.
Video data is broadcast over the RTSP protocol. More than 11 hard drives are used for archive storage of records in the system, and the total storage capacity is 20 petabytes.
The modular software architecture of the center allows the most efficient use of hardware and software resources. The system is ready for the most extreme loads: even if all the residents of the city want to watch video from all cameras at the same time, it will not βfallβ.
In addition to the main function of preventing offenses in the city and helping to detect them, the system is widely used to monitor courtyard areas.
Recordings from cameras installed in public places, trade facilities, courtyards and entrances of houses are stored for five days, and from cameras located in educational institutions - 30 days.
The operability of the cameras is provided by contractors, and at the moment the number of faulty cameras does not exceed 0,3%.
AI in New York
The scale of the video surveillance system in New York, despite the number of residents of the "Big Apple" (about 9 million), is significantly inferior to London and Moscow - only about 20 thousand cameras are installed in the city. The largest number of cameras are located in crowded places - in the subway, at railway stations, bridges and tunnels.
A few years ago, Microsoft introduced an innovative system - Domain Awareness System (), which, according to the developer, should make a real revolution in the activities of law enforcement and intelligence.
The fact is that, compared with a conventional video surveillance system that broadcasts a picture of what is happening in a particular area, DAS is able to give the police a large amount of official information. For example, if a recidivist known to the police appears in a controlled area, the system will recognize him and display on the operatorβs monitor all the data about his criminal past, on the basis of which he will decide what measures to take. If the suspect arrived by car, the system itself will track his route and report this to the police.
The Domain Awareness System can also be of benefit to counter-terrorism units, as it can easily track down any suspicious person who left a package, bag or suitcase in a crowded place. The system will fully reproduce the entire route of movement on the monitor screen in the situational center, and the police will not have to spend time interrogating and searching for witnesses.
Today, more than 3 video cameras are united in DAS, and their number is constantly growing. Various sensors are embedded in the system, reacting, for example, to explosive vapors, environmental sensors and a car license plate recognition system. Domain Awareness System has access to almost all databases of the city, which allows you to quickly obtain information about all objects caught in the field of view of the cameras.
The system is constantly being expanded and supplemented with new functionality. Microsoft plans to roll it out to other US cities as well.
Great Chinese System
In China, there is even an βanalog complex of video surveillanceβ: more than 850 thousand retired volunteers, dressed in official red vests or with armbands, monitor the suspicious behavior of citizens on the streets.
China has 1,4 billion people, 22 million of which live in Beijing. This city ranks second after London in terms of the number of installed video cameras per person. The authorities claim that the city is 100% covered by video surveillance. According to unofficial data, at the moment the number of cameras in Beijing exceeds 450 thousand, although back in 2015 there were only 46 thousand.
The 10-fold increase in the number of cameras is due to the fact that the city's video surveillance system in Beijing recently became part of the nationwide Skynet project, which started 14 years ago. The authors of the project certainly did not choose this name by chance. On the one hand, it perfectly correlates with the well-known unofficial name of China - the "Celestial Empire", or Tian Xia. On the other hand, an analogy with the film "Terminator" suggests itself, in which the system of artificial intelligence on a planetary scale was called that. It seems to us that both of these messages are true, and further you will understand why.
The fact is that the global system of video surveillance and face recognition in China, according to the intentions of the developers, should record everything that every citizen of the country does. All the actions of the Chinese are constantly recorded by video cameras with facial recognition technology. Information from them enters various databases, of which there are now several dozen.
The main developer of the video monitoring system is SenseTime. Special software created on the basis of machine learning easily recognizes not only every person in the video, but also recognizes car brands and models, clothing brands, age, gender and other important characteristics of objects caught in the frame.
Each person in the frame is indicated by its own color, and a decoding of the color block is displayed next to it. Thus, the operator immediately receives maximum information about the objects in the frame.
SenseTime is also very active with smartphone manufacturers. For example, her programs SenseTotem and SenseFace help to recognize the scenes of potential crimes and the faces of possible offenders.
The developers of the popular WeChat messenger and the Alipay payment system also cooperate with the control system.
Further, specially developed algorithms evaluate each act of a citizen, scoring points for good deeds and removing points for bad ones. Thus, a personal βsocial scoreβ is formed for each resident of the country.
In general, it turns out that life in China begins to resemble a computer game. If a citizen hooligans in public places, offends others and leads, as they say, an anti-social life, then his βsocial scoreβ will quickly become negative, and he will receive refusals everywhere.
The system is still operating in an experimental mode, but by 2021 it will be implemented throughout the country and united into a single network. So in a couple of years, Skynet will know everything about every Chinese citizen!
In conclusion
The article talks about systems that cost millions of dollars. But even in the largest systems there are no unique features available only for fabulous money. Technology is constantly getting cheaper: what cost tens of thousands of dollars 20 years ago can now be purchased for thousands of rubles.
If we compare the features of the most expensive video surveillance systems in the world with the popular solutions currently used by small and medium businesses, the difference between them will be found only in scale.
Source: habr.com