Once we have established an infrastructure to support such a pervasive use of video and audio technology, a homeowner will be able to install video hardware for one purpose and use it for many others. For this reason, we expect an explosion of demand for video applications. This proposal attempts to anticipate that demand and explore the technologies to provide ubiquitous sensing of video and audio and explore candidate video applications now. Making video and audio sensing transparent to everyday activities and distributing it everywhere in an environment is essential in the development of an Aware Home . These applications could use power lines or wireless links to transmit images.
Camera does little processing besides reformatting data for transmission.
High frame rate applications that require the processing and transmission of images at 30 Hz or better. This is specifically important in applications where high fidelity information is required to track activities. Camera and sensors with local onboard processing. These applications use task specific image processing right at the camera. This increases the cost of each installed camera, but decreases the requirement for high bandwidth information transmission.