Situational Awareness in dense urban scenes

Situational Awareness in dense urban scenes

11638373_sNess Technologies Sixth sense solution is now offered also in a portable mode which enables Homeland Security forces to move the system according to their need for designated and temporary places and events.

Following the 2007 Israeli soldier attack in the old city of Jerusalem, where videotape recording of the event showed that the attacker could be seen suspiciously walking around the area for several minutes– activity likely indicating an attack, Ness Technologies was approached by the Israeli MOD for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure (Maf’at) for the development of a situational awareness system in dense urban areas – The Sixth Sense system.

The Sixth Sense is a pioneering video object tracking system which creates situational awareness in dense urban scenes by automatically detecting suspicious behavior of humans or vehicles – in real-time. It is based on an independent learning process in which the scene’s routine is analyzed and any deviation can be automatically detected without explicit definition.

TThe Sixth Sense_3he Sixth Sense is an automatic system that alerts the operator to abnormal patterns of motion. The target scene is surveyed by video cameras, so moving objects (humans and vehicles) are automatically detected and tracked. The algorithm is based on unique 3D recognition of objects, thus enhancing the accuracy of the detection and tracking processes and drawing the user’s attention to suspicious behavior in real-time.  After the system surveys the area, it examines each trajectory in order to determine whether it is normal or not. Two types of alerts are produced by the system. The first is based on user definitions, such as loitering, running, abrupt direction changes, gathering etc. The second is based on automatic routine learning: the behavioral statistics of the scene are continuously accumulated and analyzed, providing the definition for routine in the given place at the given time. Any behavior significantly different from the routine is flagged as abnormal.

Alert initiation process

The system is suitable to today’s safe city applications, as well as border checkpoints, sensitive facilities, transportation halls, shopping malls and other public crowded areas.  According to Ness, the system is now being offered also in a portable mode which enables HLS forces to move the system according to their need for designated and temporary places such as big events and demonstrations that require monitoring.