Mobile Omnidirectional Monitoring System for Remote Personal Security

This paper describes a mobile omnidirectional monitoring system that enables an observer such as a parent to keep watch on a subject such as a child walking around city-wide outdoors easily from a remote site. The subject is equipped with an omnidirectional camera, GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver, and microphone. Receiving those data via nationwide broadband mobile network, the remote observer cannot only confirm the subject’s position measured by GPS on the maps, but also can watch the subject’s view as well as the scenery around the subject generated from omnidirectional video images in different ways. Thus, the system allows the subject and remote observer to talk to each other while sharing information on the situation of the subject and the surroundings. In experiments, we demonstrated that the proposed system can be applied for subject-centered remote surveillance and monitoring with simultaneous presentation of auditory, visual, and positional information.