Page 78 - Security Today, March 2018

screens a single person watches, the less effective they become. In fast moving environments like casinos, a person can top out at just five screens. The ideal situation is one screen to one person, but no center can afford to run this way.
The result is that video becomes mere evidence collection with little or no actual security value. We see the cameras at schools, public transits, offices or residences but do not feel any more secure when we do. That’s where AI can create value.
Introduction of AI into Video Security Systems
AI is a broad field that encompasses a variety of different algorithms and approaches to replicate human intelligence, autonomy and pro- activity. These approaches have not had success in even closely ap- proximating human performance yet. However, in recent years, what has been driving the greatest innovation in the AI field has been an approach called machine learning. Made possible by the development of powerful graphics cards and the cloud, these smart and IoT devices can analyze large amounts of data to drive insights and action.
By having a computer “look at” many examples of something, a model can be developed that would be able to identify this specific behavior. These approaches have been found to be very effective in computer vision tasks like handwriting recognition. Researchers and industry executives think video security can be next.
Opportunities and Challenges
Many companies will see AI as a cost-saving measure that can simply replace what humans do, but AI can advance in the security industry, which comes from finding out and unlocking new capabilities that has never been possible or practical before. This is the true oppor- tunity. Step back and rethink some of our basic assumptions. What have we always wanted to do that never felt possible or practical?
Here is one example of the security solutions we’ve been able to build with AI. In video security where it can be taxing to watch mul- tiple screens with so much data and activity to view and process, AI can
assist the security team to become more effective. The system is able to recognize and alert security of suspicious activities like unauthorized entry, physical violence, loitering and wall-scaling in real time based on the analysis of behavior-related events captured from the camera. It’s all done by analyzing spatial-temporal (space and time) information, such as tracking movement within a video sequence.
Up until recently, we were only able to detect shapes and geom- etries drawn on a screen, which did not give enough information to take action, but we can now take swift action based on knowing spe- cific behaviors taking place within our actual surroundings. As AI becomes more capable of understanding what people are actually doing or intending to do, managers overseeing security are suddenly able to do more than they ever thought possible in responding to those behaviors.
Imagine the increased productivity with fewer false alarms and better response when a security guard actually knows that the alarm was tripped by someone actually climbing the perimeter wall versus a person strolling along hitting a 2-D line or a cat darting across the wall. Imagine the security system capable of recognizing any physi- cal acts of aggression happening on the floor or large space, alerting you, rather than having to employ a manual approach like watching multiple screens and hoping to catch suspicious activity as it happens. Imagine an alarm monitoring center that does not need to shut off the alert feeds in bad weather because the AI is able to ignore its effects.
As AI evolves, numerous technical challenges might arise. But the greatest challenge is actually not technical at all. Bugs can be ironed out. Systems can be updated. The biggest challenge for the video security industry today is in expanding the boundaries to at-
tain what is now possible.
Shawn Guan is the CEO of Umbo Computer Vision.
1IHS - https://us.sourcesecurity.com/news/articles/ihs- report-growth-rate-global-professional-video-surveil- lance-market-slowed-2015-co-9385-ga.20840.html
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
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