Patent Publication Number: US-2006001537-A1

Title: System and method for remote access to security event information

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
      This application claims the benefit of co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/543,727 filed on Feb. 11, 2004, which is fully incorporated herein by reference, and is a continuation-in-part of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/718,447 filed on Nov. 20, 2003, which is fully incorporated herein by reference. 
    
    
     TECHNICAL FIELD  
      The present invention relates to security systems and, in particular, security systems including a mobile component for accessing and/or receiving security data at a remote location.  
     BACKGROUND INFORMATION  
      In known security systems, a variety of security data may be communicated to a central surveillance location from various security devices. However, security personnel who desire access to such security data must access the data from the central location. This inhibits their ability to investigate incidents in person and to be timely notified of various occurrences. For example, security personnel who wish to view live or recorded video from a security camera must do so at the central surveillance location.  
      In addition, security personnel may find it desirous to be actively notified of the occurrence of a security event while away from a central location and to be provided with information related to the event, such as video clips and when the event transpired.  
      Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method for remote access to and/or notification of security events. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
      These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be better understood by reading the following detailed description, taken together with the drawings wherein:  
       FIG. 1  is a schematic block diagram illustrating a security system including a system for remote access to security event information, consistent with one embodiment of the present invention;  
       FIG. 2  is a schematic block diagram illustrating one embodiment of the system for remote access to security event information;  
       FIG. 3  is a schematic block diagram illustrating another embodiment of the system for remote access to security event information; and  
       FIG. 4  is a flow chart illustrating a method for remote access to security event information, consistent with one embodiment of the present invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
      For simplicity and ease of explanation, the invention will be described herein in connection with various exemplary embodiments thereof. Those skilled in the art will recognize, however, that the features and advantages of the invention may be implemented in a variety of configurations. It is to be understood, therefore, that the embodiments described herein are presented by way of illustration, not of limitation.  
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram of an exemplary security system  100  consistent with an embodiment of the present invention. In general, the security system  100  may include one or more remote or mobile access devices  112  connected to a remote access system  120  for remotely receiving and evaluating security event information. The security system  100  may include a security event data collection system  102  that collects security event data (also referred to as alarm data) from collection or detection devices  104  and a video surveillance system  108  that captures images of security events using one or more cameras  110 . The security event data collection system  102 , the video surveillance system  108  and the remote access system  120  may be connected to and communicate via a network  150  such as an Ethernet.  
      The remote access system  120  may include a consolidated database  130  that receives and stores the security data from the security event data collection system  102  and from the video surveillance system  108 . The consolidated database  130  may link the event data for a particular event to the video data available for that event. The remote access system  120  may notify the access device  112  of an event and deliver event data together with video data related to the event, for example, in an event message. Alternatively, the access device  112  may initiate communication with the remote access system  120  to access the security data in the consolidated database  130 . The access device  112  may be used to view the event data and to play back the video associated with the event.  
      The access device  112  may be a portable personal digital assistant (PDA), cellular telephone, pager, personal computer, computer terminal, laptop computer, or information kiosk. Those skilled in the art will recognize that the access device  112  may connect to and communicate with the remote access system  120  in a variety of ways. The connection may be over the internet or through a wireless network such as a wireless local area network (WLAN) or a cellular wide area network (WAN). The access device  112  may also connect directly to the network  150  through an access point  114  and may receive data directly from the collection system  102  or the video surveillance system  108 .  
      The security event data collection system  102  may include any system for detecting and/or collecting security event data including, but not limited to, an electronic article surveillance (EAS) based system, a radio frequency identification (RFID) based system, a motion detection system, an entry/exit monitoring system, a glass window and door breakage detection system, temperature sensing system, a fire detection system, a gas detection system, an intrusion detection system, and an electronic access control system. One example of the security event data collection system  102  is the SENSORMATIC® ULTRALINK® EAS system available from ADT Security Services, Inc., a division of Tyco International Ltd. The collection devices  104  may detect security events such as detection of an active EAS tag, detection of an RFID label, a point of sale (POS) transaction, a door or window opening or breaking, or a gas or fire. When security events are detected, the data collection system  102  generates event or alarm data indicative of the detected event. The event or alarm data may include time stamps indicating a time of occurrence of the events as well as information describing the location of the event and the nature of the event or alarm.  
      The video surveillance system  108  may include any system for capturing images of security events. One example of the video surveillance system  118  is the INTELLEX® V 3.1 video surveillance system available from ADT Security Services, Inc., a division of Tyco International Ltd. The video camera  110  may take video of a surveillance area on a continuous basis or at predefined intervals. The surveillance area may be, for example, an exit/entrance of a retail store, an area around a cash register, an area around a protected asset, and the like. The camera  110  may be oriented in a fixed direction or the position of the camera  110  may be controlled, for example, to adjust the pan-tilt-zoom of the camera  110  and/or to position the camera  110  at various viewing angles. When the video surveillance system  108  captures images, the video surveillance system  108  may store the video data representing the recorded images on a multimedia server such as a digital video recorder (DVR) or a personal computer. The video surveillance system  108  may also store data pertaining to the recorded video such as time stamps, duration of the video clips, and a location of the surveillance area. The video surveillance system  108  may also capture and store audio associated with the images.  
      The security system  100  may optionally include an object recognition system  106  connected to the network  150  and/or connected directly to the video surveillance system  108 . The object recognition system  106  may be configured to recognize any variety of objects entering the surveillance area. In general, the object recognition system  106  may receive live video from the camera  110  and analyze the video to detect if an object has entered the surveillance area. The object recognition system  106  may compare data representative of the detected object with data representative of a plurality of known objects to ascertain if an acceptable correlation exists. If a correlation exists, the object recognition system  106  may act as a security event data collection system and provide event data to the consolidated database  130 .  
      Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the live video from the camera  110  may be communicated to the object recognition system  106  and video surveillance system  108  in a variety of ways, e.g., through network cables or a wireless connection. Those skilled in the art will recognize that the object recognition system  106  may include a computer provided in a variety of known configurations to analyze the live video from the camera  110  and/or store information about the video, as well as information about any events associated with or detectable from the video.  
      Referring to  FIG. 2 , one embodiment of the remote access system  120  may be implemented as a consolidated, server-based architecture used for the collection, storage and transmission of security event information. The remote access system  120  may include an alarm interface  122  that obtains event/alarm data  124  from the security event data collection system  102  and a video interface  126  that obtains video data  128  from the video surveillance system  108 .  
      The remote access system  120  may obtain the event data and video data for both real-time use (e.g., notification of an event when the event occurs) and after the fact use (e.g., for use in a report on events). The remote access system  120  may employ a common mechanism to format event records in the consolidated database  130 . In one example, an initialization file may be used to determine the fields that will reside in an event record and to determine the field ordering. The initialization file may provide an XML description of the event interface to specify record content and field ordering.  
      The consolidated database  130  links the event/alarm data and the video data corresponding to a particular event and stores the linked alarm and video data  132 . The consolidated database  130  may be implemented as a relational database, for example, using a database server and database management system software such as the type available from Microsoft or Oracle. The linked event/alarm data and video data may be stored in a combined table in the consolidated database  130 . Database synchronization software may be activated to transfer the security event data and/or video data to the consolidated database  130 .  
      The video data linked to the event data may include digitized video clips as well as information about the video. The digitized video clips may be stored directly on the consolidated database  130  as embedded video. When digitized video is stored on the consolidated database  130 , the embedded video clips may be stored in a highly compressed format using techniques known to those skilled in the art.  
      Alternatively, the digitized video clips may include linked video resident on a separate multimedia server (e.g., in the surveillance system  108 ). The digitized video clips on a separate multimedia server may also be associated with the event data on the consolidated database  130  through database relations. When the digitized video is stored in a separate location, the video data stored on the consolidated database  130  includes information about the video clips (e.g., time stamps and duration). In a further alternative, digitized video may also be streamed directly to and stored in the mobile access device  112 .  
      The event/alarm data  124  and the video data  126  may be linked based on an indication of when a security event occurred. The event/alarm data  124  and the video data  126  include timestamps indicating the time that the events occurred and the time when the video was taken. Both the data collections system  102  and the video surveillance system  108  may use Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) from a hardware timestamp source to provide an accurate and consistent timestamp. Thus, event data corresponding to an event that occurred at a particular time and location may be linked to video data corresponding to a video taken at that time and at that location.  
      In addition to the alarm and video data  132 , the consolidated database  130  may include a device management table  134  containing device information pertaining to the collection devices  104 . The device management table  134  allows a user to obtain information on the collection devices  104  and/or to manage the collection devices  104  using the mobile access device  112 . The consolidated database  130  may also include notification rules  136  that trigger notification processes, as described below. The mobile access device  112  may be used to customize the notification process by accessing and modifying the notification rules. Additionally, the rules may be modified externally over the World Wide Web using the web server  162 .  
      One embodiment of the remote access system  120  may include a wireless interface  160  to connect with the mobile access device(s)  112  and to transmit data in a format suitable for wireless transmission. The wireless interface  160  may be implemented using wireless technologies known to those skilled in the art such as the short-range radio technology known as Bluetooth and various longer-range radio technologies such as cellular protocols.  
      The remote access system  120  may include a web server  162  to make the consolidated database  130  available to an access device  112 . In one embodiment, the web server may be an Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server available from Microsoft. The web server  162  may be used to deliver the data on web pages, such as active server pages (ASP), in response to a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request from a mobile access device  112 .  
      The remote access system  120  may include a notification/messaging system  164  to provide notification of events. The notification/messaging system  160  may transmit an event or alarm message to the mobile access device  112 , for example, on a subscription basis. In one embodiment, the message may be sent to the user in the form of an email with the event data and video data. The video data in the message may include an embedded video clip or a link to a location where the video clip is stored.  
      According to one embodiment, Web services publish/subscribe mechanisms may be used to provide notification of events. The remote access system  120  may support extensible markup language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Uniform Device Discovery Interface (UDDI) standards. To provide both real-time and batch event information delivery, the remote access system  120  may also incorporate asynchronous messaging systems such as the messaging queue systems available from IBM under the name IBM MQ Series and from Microsoft under the name MSMQ. A messaging queue system is capable of delivering suitably formatted communications to subscribers using wired or wireless communications. The system may also use a time coordination protocol supported by asynchronous messaging, such as Lamport&#39;s Algorithm.  
      The remote access system  120  may also include information security protection using security technologies known to those skilled in the art. Examples of security technologies that may be used include two-factor authentication, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) security, secure sockets layer (SSL) and digital certificates.  
      Connection to the consolidated database  130  may be implemented using standardized database connection technologies such as Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) and ActiveX Data Objects (ADO). Enterprise Application Interface (EAI) applications may also use the database connection to direct data from the consolidated database  130  into enterprise applications known to those skilled in the art. Access to the data in the consolidated database  130  may be provided via XML I/O, database synchronization, an enterprise connection, or using other techniques known to those skilled in the art.  
      The remote access system  120 , the data collection system  102 , and the video surveillance system  108  may be networked using the Zero Configuration Networking (zeroconf) standards such as those implemented by Apple Computer under the name Rendezvous. The networked security system  100  may also be implemented using the Universal Plug and Play standard. The remote access system  120  may be implemented as a server appliance, for example, using the Server Appliance Kit (SAK) available from Microsoft.  
      The remote access system  120  may also run one or more scheduled or on-demand business processes  170 ,  172 ,  174 ,  176 . A notification business process  170  may be run to initiate and manage the notification process that is performed using the notification/messaging system  164 . An analysis process  172  may be run to perform a data analysis using the alarm and video data  132  in the consolidated database  130 . A reporting process  174  may be run to generate reports including, for example, event and video data or device information stored in the consolidated database  130 . An enterprise connection process  176  may be run to direct data from the consolidated database  130  into applications using an Enterprise Application Interface (EAI).  
       FIG. 3  shows another embodiment of a remote access system  120   a . This embodiment of the remote access system  120   a  includes a consolidated database  130 , a wireless interface  160 , a web server  162 , and a notification/messaging system  164 , similar to the embodiments described above. In the remote access system  120   a,  according to this embodiment, the wireless interface  160  includes both a wireless LAN interface  180  and a cellular WAN interface  182 . The remote access system  120   a  may include an alarm management interface  202  that interfaces with the data collection system  102  and manages the event/alarm data received from the data collection system  102 . The web server  162  may be connected to a firewall  204  that restricts external access to the web server  162 .  
      In this embodiment, the remote access system  120   a  also includes a video/audio streaming and control system  210  that controls a camera  110   a  and provides streaming video data for transmission over a wireless network. The video/audio streaming and control system  210  may include a dome control  212  that controls the positioning of the camera  104   a  using techniques known to those skilled in the art. The video/audio streaming and control system  210  may also include a video encoder  214  that encodes digitized video data, an encryption device  216  that encrypts the encoded video data, and a stream manager  218  that manages the stream of encrypted video data for transmission over a wireless network via the wireless interface  160 .  
      The remote access system  120   a,  according to this embodiment, may also include an external system interface  220  interfacing with a camera  104   b  and a video surveillance system  108 . The external system interface  220  may include a video recorder application programming interface (API)  222  that interfaces with the video surveillance system  108  and an interface API  224  that interfaces with the camera  104   b.    
      As shown in  FIG. 3 , one embodiment of the mobile access device  112  may include a message manager  310 , a browser  312  and a video stream receiver  320 . The message manager  310  receives and manages notification messages transmitted from a remote access system  120 ,  120   a.  The browser  312  may be used to access the web pages provided by the web server  162 . The video stream receiver  320  receives, decrypts and decodes streamed video data to allow a user to view the video using the access device  112 .  
      One method of remotely accessing security information is illustrated in  FIG. 4 . Security events are monitored  410  (e.g., using one or more detectors or data collection devices). When a security event is detected  412  and security event data is collected by the data collection system, the security event data is sent to the consolidated database and stored  414 . If the event has been captured  416  on video (e.g., by a video surveillance system), video data pertaining to the captured video may be stored  418  in the consolidated database and linked to the event data. Some or all of the captured video may be stored with the event data, or the event data may be linked to captured video stored in a separate location (e.g., on the video surveillance system). A user or subscriber is notified  420  of the event using the mobile access device (e.g., by a message including event and video data such as an embedded video clip or a link to a video clip).  
      When the user receives the notification on the mobile access device, the user may acknowledge the alarm or event and access  422  the event and video data stored on the consolidated database. When accessing the video data, the user may use the mobile access device to manipulate the video data (e.g., by fast forwarding, rewinding, scanning, or zooming in/out). In an alternative method, video data may be streamed directly to the mobile access device in real time.  
      Embodiments of the system and method for remote access to security event information can be implemented as a computer program product for used with a computer system. Such implementation includes, without limitation, a series of computer instructions that embody all or part of the functionality previously described herein with respect to the system and method. The series of computer instructions may be stored in any machine-readable medium, such as semiconductor, magnetic, optical or other memory devices, and may be transmitted using any communications technology, such as optical, infrared, microwave, or other transmission technologies. It is expected that such a computer program product may be distributed as a removable machine-readable medium (e.g., a diskette, CD-ROM), preloaded with a computer system (e.g., on system ROM or fixed disk), or distributed from a server or electronic bulletin board over the network (e.g., the Internet or World Wide Web).  
      Those skilled in the art should appreciate that such computer instructions can be written in a number of programming languages for use with many computer architectures or operating systems. For example, preferred embodiments may be implemented in a procedural programming language (e.g., “C”) or an object oriented programming language (e.g., “C++” or Java). Alternative embodiments of the invention may be implemented as pre-programmed hardware elements or as a combination of hardware and software.  
      In summary, a security system consistent with one embodiment of the present invention includes a security event data collection system configured to collect security event data and a video surveillance system configured to record images of security events and to generate video data. A remote access system is configured to receive security event data from the security event data collection system and to receive video data from the video surveillance system. The remote access system is also configured to link received video data to received security event data associated with a security event. The remote access system may include at least one consolidated database configured to store the linked security event data and video data. The remote access system may also be configured to provide access to the linked security event data and video data from an access device.  
      Consistent with another embodiment of the present invention, a system for providing remote access to security event information includes an alarm interface configured to connect with a security event data collection system and to receive security event data and a video interface configured to connect to a video surveillance system and to receive video data. The remote access system may also include a consolidated database configured to link the video data received from the video surveillance system to the security event data received from the security event data collection system and to store the linked video and security event data. The remote access system may also include a wireless interface configured to connect to a mobile access device and to provide linked video and security event data to the mobile access device over a wireless network. The remote access system may further include a notification system configured to transmit a notification message to the mobile access device providing notification of an event.  
      Consistent with a further embodiment of the present invention, a method of providing remote access to security event information includes: receiving security event data indicative of security events detected by a security event data collection system; receiving video data associated with images of security events recorded by a video surveillance system; linking security event data indicative of a security event to video data associated with the security event; storing the linked alarm and video data in a consolidated database; and transmitting the linked alarm and video data from the consolidated database to a mobile access device.  
      While the principles of the invention have been described herein, it is to be understood by those skilled in the art that this description is made only by way of example and not as a limitation as to the scope of the invention. Other embodiments are contemplated within the scope of the present invention in addition to the exemplary embodiments shown and described herein. Modifications and substitutions by one of ordinary skill in the art are considered to be within the scope of the present invention, which is not to be limited except by the following claims.