System and method of monitoring the video surveillance activities

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9218729-B2
Application number	US-201313772128-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 20, 2013
Priority date	Feb 20, 2013
Publication date	Dec 22, 2015
Grant date	Dec 22, 2015

Abstract

A method and apparatus. The method includes the steps of an activity analysis processor monitoring the activities of a security system protecting a secured area and a human operator of the security system and evaluating the system's and operator's activities, the activity analysis processor detecting an event and saving a summary of the event to a cloud server, a user interface of the cloud server detecting a request from a user for a report of activities and the cloud server downloading the activity report to the user, the activity report displayed to the user including playback features controlling playback of the summary, the playback features further including provision to accept requests for additional data from the user and the playback features downloading and displaying the additional data in response to the requests.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
a security system monitoring a plurality of sensors including at least a first switch attached to a door providing entrance into and egress from a secured area and upon detecting an event saving a summary of the event into an event file;

the security system tracking and storing a record of actions taken by a human operator in response to each event in an event file;
an activity analysis processor monitoring the activities of the security system via the event files and evaluating the system's and operator's activities within a security system database based upon deviations, trends, patterns and criticalities of each respective activity; the activity analysis processor detecting an event within the monitored activities and saving a summary of the event to a cloud server or private data server, the summary including one or more of video, image, text, audio, charts, graphs and links to other applications relating to protection of the secured area, the link to other applications based upon the human operator at least clicking on an image of a camera and opening a configuration page of the camera, checking recording parameters of the camera based upon a percentage of total recording space consumed by the camera during a previous week or rechecking a resolution based upon a frames per second, GOP or bitrate setting of the camera;
a user interface of the cloud server or private data server detecting a request from a user for a report of activities reported within a real time timeline window, the activity report including at least a content of the summary of the event associated with the secured area, the activity report further containing one or more of data, actions, warnings, help requests and recommendations generated by the activity analysis processor, wherein each of the data, actions, warnings, help requests and recommendations include one or more of video, image text, audio, charts and graphs, wherein the cloud server updates an internal database of the cloud server in real time based upon posts from the activity analysis processor or operator;
the cloud server or private data server downloading the activity report to the user, the activity report displayed to the user including playback features controlling playback of the summary, the playback features further including provision to accept requests for additional data from the user and the playback features downloading and displaying the additional data in response to the requests, wherein the playback controls include at least one of a play control that displays activities in sequence for a selected time, pause, fast forward, step forward, step reverse and jump;
generating a list and identifiers of alarms occurring within the timeline window for inclusion in the report; and
including an identifier of the human operator that responded to each of the alarms of the list in the report.

2. The method as in claim 1 further comprising attaching a video clip to the report.

3. The method as in claim 1 further comprising including trouble indicators within the report.

4. The method as in claim 1 further comprising generating a trend indicator defined by a number of alarms per time period for inclusion in the report.

5. The method as in claim 1 further comprising including comments of the human operator in the report.

6. An apparatus comprising:
a security system that monitors a plurality of sensors including at least a first switch attached to a door providing entrance into and egress from a secured area and upon detecting an

event saving a summary of the event into an event file, the security system tracking and storing a record of actions taken by a human operator in response to each event in an event file;
a cloud server;
an activity analysis processor that monitors the activities of the security system via the event files and that evaluates the system's and operator's activities within a security system database based upon deviations, trends, patterns and criticalities of each respective activity, the activity analysis processor detects an event within the monitored activities and saves a summary of the event to the cloud server, the summary includes one or more of video, image, text, audio, charts and graphs relating to protection of the secured area; a user interface of the cloud server that detects a request from a user for a report of activities reported within a real time timeline window, the activity report including at least a content of the summary of the event associated with the secured area, the activity report further containing one or more of data, actions, warnings, help requests and recommendations generated by the activity analysis processor, wherein the cloud server updates an internal database of the cloud server in real time based upon posts from the activity analysis processor or operator; and
an interface processor of the cloud server that downloads the activity report to the user, the activity report displayed to the user further comprises a playback control executing on a processor of the user and that controls playback of the summary, the playback control further including an interface that accepts requests for additional data from the user and the playback control downloads and displays the additional data to the user in response to the requests;
wherein the report further comprises a list of alarms that occurred during the timeline window and an identifier of the operator that responded to each alarm of the list.

7. The apparatus as in claim 6 wherein the playback control further comprises a timeline interface coupled to the user interface of the cloud server that receives a temporal duration of the timeline window from the user.

8. The apparatus as in claim 6 wherein the playback control further comprises a timeline interface coupled to the user interface of the cloud server that receives a starting and ending time of the timeline window from the user.

9. The apparatus as in claim 6 further comprising a video clip attached to the report or additional data identified through the user interface.

10. The apparatus as in claim 9 wherein the playback control further comprises a video interface that controls playback of the video clip based upon inputs from the user.

11. An apparatus comprising:
a cloud server;
a security system that protects a secured area;
a database of the security system;
a processor of the security system that monitors a plurality of sensors including at least a first switch attached to a door providing entrance into and egress from the secured area and upon detecting an event saving a summary of the event into an event file;
a processor of the security system that tracks and stores a record of the actions taken by a human operator in response to each event in an event file;
an activity analysis processor of the security system that monitors the activities of the security system based upon entries within a security system database, the activity analysis processor evaluates the system's and operator's activities based upon the entries, a criticality of each respective activity and averages of each activity including any deviation, trend or pattern, the activity analysis processor detects events within the monitored activities and saves a summary of the events to the cloud server, the summary includes one or more of video, image, text, audio, charts and graphs relating to protection of the secured area; and
a user interface of the cloud server that detects a request from a user for a report of activities occurring within a real time timeline window and downloads the activity report to the user, the activity report including at least

Assignees

• Honeywell Int Inc

Inventors

• Meganathan Deepak Sundar

Classifications

• H04N7/188

  Capturing isolated or intermittent images triggered by the occurrence of a predetermined event, e.g. an object reaching a predetermined position (signal generation from motion picture films H04N5/253) · CPC title

• G08B13/19665

  Details related to the storage of video surveillance data (television signal recording H04N5/76) · CPC title

• G06F3/0482

  Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus · CPC title

• G06F2203/04803

  Split screen, i.e. subdividing the display area or the window area into separate subareas · CPC title

• G06F3/14

  Digital output to display device {; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units} · CPC title