Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

MeshVision: an adaptive wireless mesh network video surveillance system

  • Regular paper
  • Published:
Multimedia Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The major surveillance camera manufacturers have begun incorporating wireless networking functionality into their products to enable wireless access. However, the video feeds from such cameras can only be accessed within the transmission range of the cameras. These cameras must be connected to backbone infrastructure in order to access them from more than one hop away. This network infrastructure is both time-consuming and expensive to install, making it impractical in many rapid deployment situations (e.g., to provide temporary surveillance at a crime scene). To overcome this problem, we propose the MeshVision system that incorporates wireless mesh network functionality directly into the cameras. Video streams can be pulled from any camera within a network of MeshVision cameras, irrespective of how many hops away that camera is. To manage the trade-off between video stream quality and the number of video streams that could be concurrently accessed over the network, MeshVision uses a bandwidth adaptation mechanism. This mechanism monitors the wireless network looking for drops in link quality or signs of congestion and adjusts the quality of existing video streams in order to reduce that congestion. A significant benefit of the approach is that it is of low cost, requiring only a software upgrade of the cameras.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. http://www.xbow.com.

  2. http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Traffic-Control-HOWTO/intro.html.

  3. http://www.wireshark.org/.

  4. http://www.jretest.com/jre-4400.htm.

  5. The Axis cameras support RTSP protocol and use RTP to deliver MPEG frames.

References

  1. Akyildiz, I.F., Melodia, T., Chowdhury, K.R.: A survey on wireless multimedia sensor networks. Comput. Netw.: Int. J. Comput. Telecommun. Netw. 51(4), 921–960 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Akyildiz, I.F., Akan, O.B., Morabito, G.: A rate control scheme for adaptive real-time applications in ip networks with lossy links and long round trip times. IEEE/ACM Trans. Netw. 13(3), 554–567 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Akyildiz, I.F., Wang, X., Wang, W.: Wireless mesh networks: a survey. Comput. Netw. ISDN Syst. 47(4), 445–487 (2005)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Chen, G., Govindaswamy, P., Li, N., Wang, J.: Continuous camera-based monitoring for assistive environments. In: PETRA ’08: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments, vol. 282, pp. 1–8. Athens, Greece (2008)

  5. Feng, W., Walpole, J., Feng, W., Pu, C.: Moving towards massively scalable video-based sensor networks. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on New Visions for Large-Scale Networks: Research and Applications, pp. 12–14 (2001)

  6. Feng, W.-C., Kaiser, E., Feng, W.C., Baillif, M.L.: Panoptes: scalable low-power video sensor networking technologies. ACM Trans. Multimedia Comput. Commun. Appl. 1(2), 151–167 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Hu, P., Wishart, R., Ti, J., Portmann, M., Indulska, J.: Meshvision: an adaptive wireless mesh network video surveillance system. In: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing (UIC 2009), vol. 5585 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 193–207. Springer, Brisbane, Australia (July 2009)

  8. Kulkarni, P., Ganesan, D., Shenoy, P., Lu, Q.: Senseye: a multi-tier camera sensor network. In: MULTIMEDIA ’05: Proceedings of the 13th Annual ACM International Conference on Multimedia, pp. 229–238. ACM, Singapore (2005)

  9. Li, N., Yan, B., Chen, G.: Measurement study on wireless camera networks. In: Proceedings of the Second ACM/IEEE International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras ICDSC 2008, pp. 1–10 (2008)

  10. Licandro, F., Schembra, G.: Wireless mesh networks to support video surveillance: architecture, protocol, and implementation issues. EURASIP J. Wirel. Commun. Netw. 2007(1), 34 (2007)

  11. Margi, C.B., Lu, X., Zhang, G., Stanek, G., Manduchi, R., Obraczka, K.: Meerkats: a power-aware, self-managing wireless camera network for wide area monitoring. In: Workshop on Distributed Smart Cameras (DSC 2006) held in conjunction with ACM SenSys. Boulder, CO, USA (October 2006)

  12. McCahill, M., Norris, C.: Cctv in London. Working paper No.6 for UrbanEye—the 5th Framework Programme of the European Commission, p. 20 (2002)

  13. Nordstrom, E.: University of uppsala open source implementation of AODV.

  14. Perkins, C., Belding-Royer, E., Das, S.: Ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing. RFC 3561 (2003)

  15. Pirzada, A.A., Wishart, R., Portmann, M., Indulska, J.: A wireless mesh network routing protocol for incident area networks. J. Pervasive Mobile Comput., Special Issue on Global Security, Elsevier (2009)

  16. Zhu, X., Agrawal, P., Pal Singh, J., Alpcan, T., Girod, B.: Rate allocation for multi-user video streaming over heterogenous access networks. In: MULTIMEDIA ’07: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Multimedia, pp. 37–46. ACM, Augsburg, Germany (2007)

Download references

Acknowledgments

NICTA is funded by the Australian Government as represented by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and the Australian Research Council through the ICT Centre of Excellence program; and the Queensland Government.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Peizhao Hu, Marius Portmann & Jadwiga Indulska

  2. National ICT Australia (NICTA), Brisbane, Australia

    Peizhao Hu, Wee Lum Tan, Ryan Wishart, Marius Portmann & Jadwiga Indulska

Authors
  1. Peizhao Hu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Wee Lum Tan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ryan Wishart
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Marius Portmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Jadwiga Indulska
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peizhao Hu.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hu, P., Tan, W.L., Wishart, R. et al. MeshVision: an adaptive wireless mesh network video surveillance system. Multimedia Systems 16, 243–254 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00530-010-0191-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00530-010-0191-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation