Camera Networks

 
One of my main research areas is to utilize embedded vision for different applications. At the beginning of the project, I used a few off-the-shelf smart cameras and finally design and build my own cameras.
My smart camera has a dual core 32-bit BlackFin processor and an 8-bit PIC processor sitting on a custom-made 10 layer PCB which was designed in PADS. The camera has an accelerometer, a GPS, a USB port, an Ethernet port, an IR LED array and a Xbee module. The main camera board can mate with a variety of imagers by Aptina. I have used XVGA, 1.2MP, 3MP and 5MP imager for different applications.
The camera can run more than five hours on a single charge. Here are a a few pictures of my custom camera:
 
Smart Camera slide show

We have used this cameras to implement two novel algorithms. The first is a localization schema based on the bearing measurement from optical signaling and the second one is a distributed tracking that fuses the sighting from neighboring cameras to localize and label moving targets.
 
Below is a video of 8 smart cameras covering the first floor of our building.