Security Software Pinpoints the Unusual

A Houston company has been issued a patent for what it calls reason-based video surveillance software.

The technology differs from capabilities in video analytics solutions currently available, BRS Labs President John Frazzini said.

Video analytics software receives data from cameras and issues alerts based on very specific and narrowly defined rules pre-programmed by humans, he said. BRS Labs’ technology allows computers to autonomously learn to recognize unusual behaviors and warn security teams about them.

The AISight Behavioral Recognition System accepts video streams from standard cameras, detects and tracks subjects, characterizes their appearances and properties, classifies them, learns the patterns of behavior they exhibit and remembers them. If it notices activities that deviate from those patterns, it will alert users about those events in real time.

On the company’s website, there are videos showing the system alerting users to a truck passing through a gate in the wrong direction, luggage left in a populated area, a passenger exiting a vehicle at a security checkpoint and a guard with a gun entering a facility at the wrong time of the day. In one example, AISight doesn’t pay attention to trees blowing in the wind but does send an alert when it notices someone behind a chain-link fence in a secure part of a beach.

“These advancements would not have been possible 10 or 15 years ago because science didn’t adequately understand how the human brain models and manipulates data, and there wasn’t enough computing power to get the job done,” said Wesley K. Cobb, chief science officer at BRS Labs.

The patent issued to the company covers the invention of using artificial intelligence learning modules to recognize behavior patterns in a video stream to identify objects and events that are unusual.

The company serves clients in government, mass transit, infrastructure and other commercial markets. It signed a $2 million deal this year with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to supply systems to several train stations.

Photo Credit: BRS Labs

Topics: Infotech