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> news and announcements:
UMN Receives Transit Surveillance Contract
Automated Human Activity Monitoring for DHS
The Department of Homeland Security has awarded
the University of Minnesota a $1.8M contract for automated monitoring of
a major intermodal transit station. Tying together over 50 existing cameras
and adding 50 more, the University system will greatly improve security
officer efficiency and reduce the cost of maintaining the security of large
public spaces.
Principal Investigator, Dr. Osama Masoud, explained, “The individual
monitoring of over one hundred cameras would consume the attention of tens
of security personnel — an expensive and inefficient proposition for
situations that seldom ever arise. Our system will permit one operator to
efficiently monitor all cameras by highlighting his or her attention only
on ‘suspicious events.’” Added Co-Investigator Dr. Richard
Voyles, “The system itself will look for abandoned packages and
suspicious behavior, actually learning what lies inside and outside the
realm of ‘normal human activity.’ If suspicious behavior is
detected, it is only flagged for human interpretation. A human will always
be responsible for the final determination of appropriate
action.”
The research and development contract spans two years and contains optional
extensions totaling over $5M, based on performance.
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