Surveillance of ground vehicles for airport security
ABSTRACT Future surveillance systems will work in complex and cluttered environments which require systems engineering solutions for such applications such as airport ground surface management. In this paper, we highlight the use of a L1 video tracker for monitoring activities at an airport. We present methods of information fusion, entity detection, and activity analysis using airport videos for runway detection and airport terminal events. For coordinated airport security, automated ground surveillance enhances efficient and safe maneuvers for aircraft, unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) operating within airport environments. Keywords: Airport monitoring, tracking, surveillance, information fusion 1. INTRODUCTION Airport security is critical for personnel safety, efficient vehicle coordination, and effective airspace utilization. The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) and Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) seek methods for safe and efficient air and ground operations [1]. Figure 1 shows many aspects of airport security including air traffic control, security operations, tower visualization, and ground-based surveillance. While airport security is typically associated with manned aircraft, future scenarios could include unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) take-off and landings as well as unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to monitor runway activities. Thus, it is important to consider automated video exploitation methods for ground surface security operations to alert Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) of impending collisions and security threats. A key future technology for aviation is NextGen air traffic control [2]. Typically, an airport is monitored from radar and video for airplane safety, ground operations, and security. In most cases, an ATC monitors events to make sure operations are proceeding as desired. Analogously, there are emerging situations in which UAVs are operating in airport environments in which there is a need to coordinate safe flight (e.g., take-off and landings) using the same transportation routes (e.g., runways) as commercial aircraft. In this study, we address a future topic that looks at autonomously monitoring transportation routes at an airport such that there is an advantageous use of automatic video surveillance that can cue ATC operators on possible collisions of ground transportation systems. a Figure 1: ATC Activates for Airport Security: (a) controller, (b) camera images, (c) aerial images, (d) ground cameras. Automated surveillance of ground surface operations at an airport includes information fusion [3, 4] of multiple sensors. Surface management also requires collaborative automation [5] and integrated displays [6]. These automated systems must be integrated with airport transportation methods for safe distance coordination of vehicles and the people that