A surveillance testbed with networked sensors for integrated target inference

Target inference in surveillance systems includes target detection, localization, tracking, recognition, etc. Existing surveillance systems which consist of either non-mobile sensing devices or mobile wireless sensor nodes usually can not provide both a large coverage area and a high accuracy of target inference. In this paper, we present a surveillance testbed with networked sensors of both stationary and mobile types for the inference of moving targets in a region of interest. The testbed is intended to serve as a platform to perform integrated target inference for moving ground vehicles. Although the testbed can be used for multiple purposes, the joint decision and estimation (JDE) framework and its solution are particularly emphasized. The experimental study upon the testbed is trying to investigate the practical issues and factors involved in JDE framework with the application of moving vehicle detection and tracking. To combine data from sensors/processors of different types, fusion techniques with various practical constraints have to be implemented. We demonstrate the vehicle detection and tracking capability with multiple cameras and wireless sensors and point out several challenges in achieving persistent surveillance with high accuracy.