Wednesday, June 08, 2022

Camera Arrays for Large Scale Surveillance

From the journal Light Science and Applications, in a paper titled "A modular hierarchical array camera" X. Yuan et al. write:

Abstract: Array cameras removed the optical limitations of a single camera and paved the way for high-performance imaging via the combination of micro-cameras and computation to fuse multiple aperture images. However, existing solutions use dense arrays of cameras that require laborious calibration and lack flexibility and practicality. Inspired by the cognition function principle of the human brain, we develop an unstructured array camera system that adopts a hierarchical modular design with multiscale hybrid cameras composing different modules. Intelligent computations are designed to collaboratively operate along both intra- and intermodule pathways. This system can adaptively allocate imagery resources to dramatically reduce the hardware cost and possesses unprecedented flexibility, robustness, and versatility. Large scenes of real-world data were acquired to perform human-centric studies for the assessment of human behaviours at the individual level and crowd behaviours at the population level requiring high-resolution long-term monitoring of dynamic wide-area scenes.







Given the potential applications shown (large scale surveillance), it is quite intriguing that the "Ethics Declaration" section of this paper is empty.

Open access link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-021-00485-x

See also: https://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2022/06/surveillance-market-and-smartsens.html

6 comments:

  1. Dave Brady has been a leader in this area and the performance of these array systems is always impressive. However, I feel uneasy about the application and increasing loss of being able to be anonymous in everyday life. Security and privacy have always been two edges of the same sword when it comes to cameras. Who wants to be tracked and observed (at least by machine) at every moment?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Camera's don't increase security so much. Saw lot severest crimes captured by cameras at YouTube. Camera's only help later on see what's going on here.
      Crimes is social problems and can be reduced with social changes.

      All tech which help capture video and machine learning with 2nd hand give high tech criminals nice instruments for making nice fakes and fool people's at new level

      Delete
    2. Well, you will never know what would be the situation without cameras ...

      Delete
    3. We had crimes statistics over 100 years. And situation in different countries with different camera law and life quality.
      If we speak just about common crimes. We can look to political opposition suppression. Camera's at each corner will Greatly help.

      Delete
  2. thanks for sharing. And thanks to mr Fossum, his invention literally changed my life. I joined Micron in 2004 on DRAM, then switched on image sensor in 2005, first smartphones, then automotive (with a stint in DSLR); so much learning and fun through all the challenges. Thanks to mr Fossum.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was glad to have helped in some very small way, and glad you had fun. Reminds of the Micron motto we adopted when we started Photobit: "Have fun, make money, and learn along the way."

      Delete

All comments are moderated to avoid spam and personal attacks.