DSPcam: A camera sensor system for surveillance networks

Surveillance is emerging as a key application of camera networks. In this paper, we describe our wireless smart camera system called DSPcam designed for real-time surveillance purposes. DSPcam has a Blackfin processor, CMOS image sensor and 802.11 b/g communication module. It also integrates with a standard sensor network node such as Firefly, through which IEEE 802.15.4-based communication is available. An open-source image processing library ported to our DSPcam platform allows for the development of many computer vision applications. We use the in-network processing ability of each DSPcam in our system to annotate video streams with meta-data information that succinctly describes key elements of the visual data being transmitted. The meta-data can be used to trigger alerts and for conducting rapid ex post facto searches. The DSPcams use a time-synchronized communication protocol called TSAM that enables transmission of a large number of video flows and dynamic allocation of bandwidth for high-priority video streams. Finally, we also describe the integration of DSPcam with Sensor Andrew, a large-scale sensing network deployed across the campus of Anonymous University.