(via Carnegie Mellon University)
Have you ever had the feeling your being ‘watched’? Chances are at some point you have, especially if you have ever been in a store, gas station or even a street corner. While this may be bothersome to both criminals and tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists it’s about to get a lot worse as graduate students from Cornell University have developed a new tracking system that makes use of CCTV cameras. The system is known as the ‘Marauder’s Map’ (aptly named), which was named after Harry Potter’s magic map that shows every inch of Hogwarts grounds as well as identifying every individual’s exact location at the school. The students designed the system to track individuals inside buildings using several tracking methods such as identifying clothing colors, facial recognition, non-background detection and the persons expected location, which is then displayed on a simplified area map. The information is needed as complex buildings usually have obstacles such as cabinetry, furniture and walls that can conceal individuals resulting in an inefficient system to reliably track persons. As a result, the grad-students combined all the tracking techniques aforementioned, which is then coalesced and processed in real-time using a specialized algorithm developed for the systems framework. The students tested their system using two locations with one being an open outdoor area (used as a control) and the other situated in a nursing home environment (the ultimate test). As expected, the system performed adequately in the open environment but the real test began when the team moved into the indoor environment of the nursing home. There the students used their tracking software with the homes CCTV infrastructure where they monitored and tracked 13 subjects over a six-minute period. Marauder’s Map was successful at tracking the subjects to within one meter of their expected positions and registered only 1/5 of false positives/negatives (were not where they were supposed to be) of current complex tracking systems in use today.
According to the Marauder’s Map developers, it is the first tracking system that uses the series of indoor cameras situated in complex environments. The projected uses for the system are far and wide, as it could be used to identify and track intruders inside buildings such as malls. Hospitals and nursing homes could greatly benefit from the system as a way of tracking people with disorders such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease who can sometimes become lost. Another interesting application for the system could be used in shopping malls where customers could be pinpointed and guided to certain stores or other areas instead of using the confusing maps already in place. On the other hand, the system could potentially be modified for use in tracking individuals in large crowds such as rioters, which would allow police to arrest those who have committed crimes such as looting. Like it or not CCTV in buildings, traffic lights and positioned on sidewalks are not going away anytime soon and augmenting them with tracking software is almost a certainty in the near future.
C
See more news at:
