MIT talk: Video Based System Monitoring

Speaker: Brian Anthony, MIT CSAIL
Date: Monday, May 15 2006
Time: 2:00PM to 3:00PM

ABSTRACT:
In this talk we present new algorithms for Video Event Analysis and Video Event Detection. This work is motivated by applications for video based [automated] system monitoring in industrial, manufacturing, and research environments. We discuss the unique attributes, constraints, and needs of such environments.

We develop deterministic algorithms to simultaneously move-and-stretch space-and-time to determine a model-free similarity measures between an example [template] video and an unknown video. The similarity measures themselves are functions of space and time. We demonstrate the applicability of such similarity measures to industrial wear monitoring, failure prediction, and assembly line feedback control. We then demonstrate the applicability to non-industrial environments with examples in sports, surveillance, and entertainment.

We extend the similarity machinery and introduce a new technique for Video Event Detection. We demonstrate the applicability to content query; we identify the temporal and spatial location inside of a large video stream which is similar to a query [template] video. We explore the performance degradation and robustness of the Video Event Analysis and Video Event Detection algorithms to various types of noise via simulation and distortion of real examples. We develop techniques, particular important in the context of industrial applications, to aid the engineer in the selection of a video template that is relevant to their application and locally robust to various types of noise.

We conclude with a discussion of how some of these techniques are currently applied to the broadcast of the PGA Tour on CBS, for which the speaker recently won an Emmy Award from the National Television Academy. (May 1, 2006. 27th Annual Sports Emmy for Innovative Technical Achievement)

AFFILIATIONS: Department of Mechanical Engineering MIT. Visiting Lecturer in Sloan. CTO Xcitex Inc.