Estimating Interpersonal Distance and Crowd Density with a Single-Edge Camera

For public safety and physical security, currently more than a billion closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras are in use around the world. Proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine/deep learning (M/DL) technologies have gained significant applications including crowd surveillance. The state-of-the-art distance and area estimation algorithms either need multiple cameras or a reference object as a ground truth. It is an open question to obtain an estimation using a single camera without a scale reference. In this paper, we propose a novel solution called E-SEC, which estimates interpersonal distance between a pair of dynamic human objects, area occupied by a dynamic crowd, and density using a single edge camera. The E-SEC framework comprises edge CCTV cameras responsible for capturing a crowd on video frames leveraging a customized YOLOv3 model for human detection. E-SEC contributes an interpersonal distance estimation algorithm vital for monitoring the social distancing of a crowd, and an area estimation algorithm for dynamically determining an area occupied by a crowd with changing size and position. A unified output module generates the crowd size, interpersonal distances, social distancing violations, area, and density per every frame. Experimental results validate the accuracy and efficiency of E-SEC with a range of different video datasets.

Automated summary

This paper introduces a novel solution called E-SEC, which utilizes a single edge camera to estimate the interpersonal distance between individuals, area occupied by a dynamic crowd, and density. By combining human detection technology and algorithms, E-SEC can monitor social distancing of a crowd in real-time, as well as dynamically determine the size of the area occupied by the crowd and the crowd density.