Security Applications Using Computer Vision

Abstract

Computer vision plays a significant role in a wide range of homeland security applications. The homeland security applications include: port security (cargo inspection), facility security (embassy, power plant, bank), and surveillance (military or civilian), et cetera. Video surveillance cameras are placed in offices, hospitals, banks, ports, parking lots, parks, stadiums, malls, train stations, airports, et cetera. The challenge is not for acquiring surveillance data from these video cameras, but for identifying what is valuable, what can be ignored, and what demands immediate attention. Computer vision systems attempt to construct meaningful and explicit descriptions of the environment or scene captured in an image. A few Computer Vision based security applications are presented here for securing building facility, railroad (Objects on railroad, and red signal detection), and roads.