City Wide Mesh Wireless and Analytic Claims Examined

At a recent ISC West panel discussion [link no longer available], presenters discussed the strength of video analytics technology being able to mimic the self forming, self healing, and self balancing abilities of a mesh network. There is a danger in believing in the effectiveness of video analytics in this great of a capacity.

Ioimage [link no longer available] and Motorola [link no longer available] panelists explained how edge devices implemented within a mesh network deployment can solve man-power problems of analyzing multiple video streams.

They claim that multiple edge devices networked through the mesh, will be able to effectively pass on analytic data to each other.  They gave an example that a suspicious person may be tracked via a PTZ camera, and when he moves out of view, another PTZ within the mesh will carry on the tracking duties and so forth.  They make the claim that the analytics will be able to pass along this information throughout the mesh, tracking a suspect through an entire city. The panelists make no reference on how this system will handle false positive analytic events, which could pose a significant problem at tracking a subject in a large scale deployment.

The panelists also explain the use of vehicles as remote hubs within the mesh network for video distribution. They speak of the advantages of mobile video to manage large events, deploy portable wireless surveillance, and first responder training.  They make no reference to the quality of video or the effectiveness of video analytics integration in a mobile deployment to significant concerns.

They end the discussion with presenting a market study using this video analytic/mesh network in a college campus setting. They focus on the analytics being able to stop theft, assaults, and burglaries by having campus wide coverage 24 hrs a day.