Video Analysis in PTZ Camera Networks From master-slave to cooperative smart cameras

Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras are able to dynamically modify their field of view. This functionality introduces new capabilities to camera networks such as increasing the resolution of moving targets and adapting the sensor coverage. On the other hand, PTZ functionality requires solutions to new challenges such as controlling the PTZ parameters, estimating the ego-motion of the cameras and calibrating the moving cameras. This tutorial provides an overview of the main video processing techniques and the currents trends in this active field of research. Autonomous PTZ cameras mainly aim to detect and track targets with the largest possible resolution. Autonomous PTZ operation is activated once the network detects and identifies an object as sensible target and requires accurate control of the PTZ parameters and coordination among the cameras in the network. We, therefore, present cooperative localisation and tracking methods, i.e., multi-agent and consensus-based approaches to jointly compute the target’s properties such as ground-plane position and velocity. Stereo vision exploiting wide baselines can be used to derive 3D target localisation. This tutorial further presents different techniques for controlling PTZ camera hand-off, configuring the network to dynamically track targets and optimizing the network configuration to increase coverage probability. It also discusses implementation aspects for these video processing techniques on embedded smart cameras—with a special focus on data access properties.