On Alert

Video surveillance, analytics used to help secure petroleum infrastructure

• By Brooks McChesney
• Jan 24, 2007

SECURING the flow of oil from offshore platforms, land-based drilling rigs and pumping stations across miles of pipeline and infrastructure is a top priority for the government and the petroleum industry.

For several decades, video surveillance has been used to help secure petroleum infrastructure. Now this technology is undergoing a dramatic evolution.

For several decades, video surveillance has been used to help secure petroleum infrastructure. Now this technology is undergoing a dramatic evolution. Today, CCTV is smarter, as behavior recognition software adds intelligence to video as it is captured, recorded and analyzed. Intelligent video offers improvements in defending critical infrastructure facilities, such as offshore drilling platforms and petroleum pipelines, by helping security personnel do their jobs more effectively and efficiently.

Focus on High-Value Tasks
With intelligent video surveillance and analytics software working together the detection of a violation occurs automatically, and real-time alarms and alerts are sent to responders. This keeps security personnel from continually having to watch monitors, particularly during the bulk of their shifts, when nothing is happening on screens. Personnel can be freed to better apply their skills to tasks such as prevention, interdiction and investigation.

For example, if radar detects an unidentified moving object approaching an offshore platform, this is designed to trigger cameras to survey the area and classify the object appropriately. Intelligent video can accurately distinguish between a ship approaching or floating debris, and as the object moves closer, the system takes a snapshot of identifying markings on the craft. This handoff between systems can be automatic, and human personnel can be alerted only if the object is identified as a potential threat, minimizing unnecessary responses to false alarms.

If intelligent video detects a vehicle parked in an unauthorized spot near a land-based helicopter transit point, and a few weeks later, a car is identified parked for several hours at the perimeter of a distant pipeline service area, intelligent video can compare the two digital images. The system can identify whether it is the same vehicle and alert security personnel to the description. With integrated OCR technology, the system also can read license plate numbers.

With disconnected monitoring systems and incidents widely spaced in geography or time, security staff would be unlikely to make the connection. Intelligent video can associate such events and provide security teams with critical information.

Blanket of Protection
One of the security challenges for petroleum companies is the diversity of environments that must be addressed, including offshore platforms, land-based drilling and supply facilities and pipelines that traverse remote areas.

Meeting security needs of diverse environments can result in a complex maze of sometimes overlapping security systems. For example, a petroleum company needs to have access control systems and perimeter security for its onshore facilities. Wide-area security systems, which may incorporate GPS positioning and ground sweep radar to detect unauthorized people in remote areas near pipelines, also may be required. Still, other water-based security systems may be needed to secure offshore platforms. If none of these systems can talk to each other or unify inputs, expanding CCTV without the inclusion of intelligent video surveillance and analytics software can simply add costs and stretch employee resources by requiring more people to watch more video.

A digital system enables a wide range of inputs -- from multiple cameras in various locations, sensors and detectors such as GPS systems, smoke detectors and others -- to be stitched together to provide what DHS and DOD call "total domain awareness." For protection and surveillance initiatives to achieve the desired level of awareness, information and intelligence from various detectors and locations needs to be integrated, so responders can intelligently react with full situational awareness around a given breach.

Today, adjacent facilities in high-asset industries, such as petrochemical production, are beginning to design command and control facilities to share information about events along common perimeters. Concerns, such as suspicious objects left behind, loitering and vehicles improperly parked, can be analyzed to comprehend whether an event or incident is happening in more than one location and to differentiate random occurrences from those with an increased intent level.

Object Classification
Traditional object tracking or tripwire approaches to video surveillance can be useful for limited purposes such as indicating whether anyone or anything enters a defined area. However, video classification engines are required to distinguish between a threat object and a benign activity in more rapidly changing, visually dense situations like busy plant facilities, outdoor areas where weather or wildlife can cause motion or on bodies of water.

More than simple motion detection, an effective security system must be able to classify objects. In situations where dispatching security personnel can be time-consuming or costly, intelligent video can determine whether a repeated motion is a moving tree, a grazing deer or a human being loitering near a pipeline. Dispatchers are alerted only when suspicious behavior occurs, and can then make informed decisions about sending personnel to distant or difficult-to-access locations. This results in significantly reduced security costs, along with better deployment and use of scarce security resources.

With intelligent video, video algorithms are applied to identify people in a camera view, the number of people, specific types or sizes of vehicles or packages, and how long the objects have been stationary or removed from a location. The algorithms also can detect a wide range of human behaviors and actions such as loitering and perimeter intrusion. Libraries of algorithms are continuously being expanded, and new ones are created to serve highly specialized surveillance requirements.

Finally, to be effective, the software is fine tuned to each camera. To use behavior recognition, the first step is to identify the precise problem or threat at the location of that specific video device. Cameras at a remote pipeline site versus cameras at helicopter landing pads can be set to trigger alarms for very different sets of events.

Challenges of Water and Weather
Weather conditions can thwart human monitoring of video and cause false alarms in motion detection and tripwire types of systems. For example, in a snowstorm, the movement of the snow itself can be a problem for motion detectors, and water droplets forming on the camera dome can block the view.

Intelligent video systems do not require images to be 100-percent clear. Intelligent video looks for specific behavioral changes or anomalous activity and is not distracted by other motion or changes in the image. With intelligent technology, an alarm is only generated when pre-determined suspicious events occur -- even in extreme weather conditions.

Especially important for drilling platforms is perimeter monitoring over water. The motion of waves can trip motion detection systems, and whitecaps can be misclassified as objects. A fine-tuned intelligent video system focuses down to a few pixels in granularity and can easily differentiate between a water-borne vehicle and a whitecap or floating debris.

Enforcing Emergency Plans and Procedures
In large organizations and facilities, multiple people and teams must coordinate their efforts in the event of an emergency. In combination with intelligent video, workflow technology and processes can be applied to drive response management.

Security workflow technology, commonly known as alert management, is designed to go into effect as soon as a threat has been detected. Alert management software can rapidly inform individuals and teams of their roles, prioritize activities, provide updates on shifting needs as situations change and enable detailed situational analysis after the event.

Alert management technology builds on the existing emergency plans in place at industry plants and facilities. For each type of security policy, plans are programmed into specialized alert management software. When an event occurs, a software algorithm identifies the type of problem or threat, and the software automatically sends alerts and provides information to help responders be more proactive and coordinate activities between multiple responders. The software complies with existing regulations and requirements in terms of which security personnel are alerted, in what order, through a specific procedure and identifies specific information for the correct responder.

Key to the workflow is a decision tree where personnel can be alerted in sequence and asked to check back in a number of minutes. If no check-in occurs within the required time, the alert management system will automatically roll over to the next person identified in the emergency plan.

Alert management software combined with an intelligent video security system can guide responders through real-time steps needed to address a threat using text messages, still images and video delivered via handheld communications devices. As a result, every security and emergency team can focus on effective response rather than spending vital time and attention figuring out how to respond.

Evolution of Surveillance
Today, intelligent video is working in a variety of industry and government environments as a management tool. With alerts and real-time video, security personnel can make the most well-informed decisions about how to take action. Not a replacement for guards or other security professionals, behavior recognition is a productivity enhancer, enabling teams to react effectively and only when needed.

As optics quality improves and CCTV systems include high-definition cameras, as well as thermal and infrared devices, there will be a dramatic leap forward. Other developments are likely to include embedded intelligent video capabilities directly in the camera in the future, so that video files are transmitted over high-bandwidth networks only when the file contains information recognized as critical to facility security, whether offshore or on land.