Sensors (Apr 2023)

Sensor Fusion Approach for Multiple Human Motion Detection for Indoor Surveillance Use-Case

  • Ali Abbasi,
  • Sandro Queirós,
  • Nuno M. C. da Costa,
  • Jaime C. Fonseca,
  • João Borges

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/s23083993
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 23, no. 8
p. 3993

Abstract

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Multi-human detection and tracking in indoor surveillance is a challenging task due to various factors such as occlusions, illumination changes, and complex human-human and human-object interactions. In this study, we address these challenges by exploring the benefits of a low-level sensor fusion approach that combines grayscale and neuromorphic vision sensor (NVS) data. We first generate a custom dataset using an NVS camera in an indoor environment. We then conduct a comprehensive study by experimenting with different image features and deep learning networks, followed by a multi-input fusion strategy to optimize our experiments with respect to overfitting. Our primary goal is to determine the best input feature types for multi-human motion detection using statistical analysis. We find that there is a significant difference between the input features of optimized backbones, with the best strategy depending on the amount of available data. Specifically, under a low-data regime, event-based frames seem to be the preferred input feature type, while higher data availability benefits the combined use of grayscale and optical flow features. Our results demonstrate the potential of sensor fusion and deep learning techniques for multi-human tracking in indoor surveillance, although it is acknowledged that further studies are needed to confirm our findings.

Keywords