Year
1996
Abstract
Systems and devices that are controlled remotely are beeoming more common in seeurity systems in the US Air Force and other government agencies to provide protection of valuable assets. These systems reduce the number of needed personnel while still providing a high level of protection. However, each remotely controlled device usually has its own communication protocol. This limits the ability to change devices without changing the system that provides the communications control to the device. Sandia is pursuing a standard protocol that can be used to communicate with the different deviees currently in use, or may be used in the fiture, in the US Alr Force and other government agencies throughout the security community. Devices to be controlled include intelligent pardtilt mounts, day/night video cameras, thermal imaging cameras, and remote data processors. Important features of this protocol include the ability to send messages of varying length, identi~ the sender, and more importantly, control remote data processors. As camera and digital signal processor (IMP) use expands, the DSP will begin to reside in the camera itself. The DSP can be used to provide autofocus, frame-to-frame image registration, video motion detection (vMD), target detection, tracking, image compression, and many other fimctions. With the serial data control link, the actual DSP sotlware can be updated or changed as required. Coaxial video cables may become obsolete once a compression algorithm is established in the DSP. This paper describes the proposed public domain protocol, features, and examples of use. The authors hope to elicit comments from security technology developers regarding format and use of remotely controlled automated assessment devices.