Evaluation of HBP Mirror System for Remote Surveillance

The HBP (horizontal fixed viewpoint biconical paraboloidal) mirror is an anisotropic convex mirror that has a property of inhomogeneous angular resolution about azimuth angle. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of the HBP mirror system for remote surveillance. We developed a real remote surveillance system that is constructed by the HBP mirror system mounted on an electric cart. Through the surveillance experiments, surveyors usually looked almost front views, and they paid attention to interesting objects only when the cart approaches them. Since the HBP mirror system has high resolution in frontal view, it seems to work well in the surveillance. We also constructed a simulational remote surveillance environment in order to quantitatively compare the HBP mirror system with a conventional omnidirectional mirror system under fair experimental conditions. As a practical task, we assumed object searching in a virtually constructed devastated area. We confirmed that objects can be detected earlier and with certainty by the HBP mirror system