REMOTE CONTROL FACILITIES OF WEB-BASED
SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM FOR ELECTRIC POWER APPLIANCE
AND NETWORK CAMERA
Yoshiro IMAI
, Yuichi Sugiue, Akira Andatsu
Faculty of Engineering, * also a member of Information Technology Center, Kagawa University
2217-20 Hayashi-cho Takamatsu, 761-0396 Japan
Daisuke Yamane, Hirofumi Kuwajima, Shin’ich Masuda
CMICRO Corporation
269-1,Hayashi-chou,Takamatsu-city,Kagawa,761-0301,JAPAN
Keywords:
Remote monitoring and controlling, cellular phone, image database, camera platform homing.
Abstract:
We have been improving our monitoring system, which had been organized with network cameras, an inte-
grated web/mail server, web-based clients and remote control devices. Several kinds of devices can be used
as our clients including, for example, high-performance cellular phone, which are equipped with Java virtual
machine and web-browsing facilities.
Our integrated server is designed to play intensive roles of web and e-mail services. It can obtain JPEG images
from network cameras, process them, accumulate them into its database. It can also receive some types of
requests from clients, analyze them and perform registered services for monitoring and/or controlling. Almost
all software of our monitoring system have been written in Java programming language, because of easy and
powerful description of GUI as well as network programming.
1 INTRODUCTION
People need higher performance monitoring system
with lower cost. Security cameras and sensors are
widely employed in the several area and public en-
vironment. So we want to utilize them and obtain
an useful information including images for our de-
termination as well as our risk aversion. We have
developed a monitoring system in order to perform
remote monitoring and remote controlling services
for system reliability and maintenance. The previous
version of our monitoring system was realized with
well-known technologies, such as server-client com-
puting model, security camera with network facility,
Java technology for several computing environment,
HTTP(Hyper Text Transfer Protocol)-based network
programming style and Linux-based computing envi-
ronment with several kinds of open-source software.
2 SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
2.1 Monitoring Facilities
An integrated server of our monitoring system can pe-
riodically obtain images from some network cameras
through the private network. Such images are trans-
mitted from camera to server by means of HTTP-
based communication procedure. They are accumu-
lated as JPEG images temporally into the internal
buffer of the server, reduced into a fourth and a ninth
resized image data and finally stored into image data-
base. Reduction of image must be done, because
some mobile devices allow only restricted amount of
packet size between the server and themselves.
In order to realize remote monitoring, it is ab-
solutely necessary to obtain several kinds of images.
Although animated (moving) pictures would be much
more effective to make a suitable decision about the
target situation than stationary ones, our system can
only deal with continuously stationary pictures still
now. Integrated Server requires network camera to
transmit JPEG images at a sampling rate, receives
such images as monitoring view, reduces size of im-
ages and then accumulates a series of them in the
storage. The server also prepares Java Applet on its
homepage through its Web service, begins to run the
process of http daemon (Apache), waits for clients’
access from global network and then delivers such an
Applet to the target client. Figure 1 shows a scheme
of our remote monitoring procedure.
At the side of client, Java Applet downloaded from
the server provides a GUI which communicate server
311
IMAI Y., Sugiue Y., Andatsu A., Yamane D., Kuwajima H. and Masuda S. (2005).
REMOTE CONTROL FACILITIES OF WEB-BASED SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM FOR ELECTRIC POWER APPLIANCE AND NETWORK CAMERA.
In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, pages 311-314
Copyright
c
SciTePress
Figure 1: Schema of Obtaining Image from Network Cam-
era and Processing it for the several types of Client of Mon-
itoring System
to requests transmitting JPEG image by means of
HTTP connection and display received JPEG data file
on the browser in the mode of stationary image or
continuously alternating images like as slide show.
In the case of later mode, Applet prefetches JPEG
data from server, stores and preload in the double-
buffering style, and realize quasi-moving picture on
the display of PC’s browser.
2.2 Control Facilities
Remote control service seems to be essential for sup-
plementing remote monitoring service and enlarging
it into wide application. Various control mechanisms
have been proposed for several application. This time,
we have employed power switching facility as remote
control function. It is based on the OpenPLANET
technology, which has been developed by the Shikoku
Electric Power Company Ltd. It has some excellent
characteristics, one of which is to transmit digital in-
formation from node to node through electric power
line.
OpenPLANET control server is connected to In-
tegrated Server in the private network. It works as
sub-server in our monitoring system. It has a ded-
icated interface to connect serially with the Electric
Power Line Router (EPLR). It is the special-purpose
microcomputer-based device, which can translate dig-
ital information into analog signal and mix it along
electric power line. With EPLR, digital information
of OpenPLANET server can be carried to another
computer only by means of electric power line within
single electric power distribution board. So we need
not to equip additional cable to transmit digital infor-
mation between controller and the target node to be
controlled.
Power Control Adaptor (PCA) is the special-
purpose power outlet based on OpenPLANET tech-
nology, which can turn on or off electric power ac-
cording to analog control signal from remote con-
troller via electric power line. The Open PLANET
server provides remote control facilities to perform
electric power switching by means of transmitting
control signal for digital information into PCA with
EPLR.
Our Integrated Server has a connection with such
an OpenPLANET server, sends and receives socket-
based messages to/from such a server, and performs
remote control service for electric power switching
through private networking. Communication between
our server and OpenPLANET server is carried out
based on TCP/IP protocol and software for their com-
munication is realized with Java programming. Java
codes can be executed not only on our Integrated
Server but also on the OpenPLANET server. And
frankly speaking almost software of our server is writ-
ten with Java programming language.
The merits of employing the OpenPLANET tech-
nology are summarized as follows:
No additional cabling is necessary to realize re-
mote power switching, because control signal can
be transmitted via electric power line with EPLR.
No additional remodeling of target device to be
controlled is necessary, because PCA is equipped
between such a target device and according con-
ventional power outlet.
Figure 2: Schema of Controlling Appiance with Open-
PLANET in our Monitoring System
Client users can enjoy remote control service from
Integrated Server if they request Java applet down-
load from the server to do power switching. Such
a Java applet communicates with its Server to al-
low OpenPLANET control sub-server to perform the
above control mechanism. Figure 2 shows a scheme
of our remote control procedure.
2.3 GUI Services for Cellular Phone
Figure 3 shows a sample view of monitoring image on
a cellular phone, which is delivered from Integrated
Server. It is a view of a display image from CLDC-
based Java application emulator for a certain cellular
phone. In order to reduce useless traffic cost between
cellular phone and Integrated Server, client of cellular
phone must make sure to push the bottom for obtain-
ing the next image from Integrated Server.
Figure 3: Schema of communication between server and
CDLC-based Cellular Phone for Obtaining Image from
Network camera
With Java applet, clients can browse monitoring
quasi-moving image obtained from network camera
on their browser of PC through Integrated Server. But
it has seemed to be more effective and convenient
for clients to browse such images with their cellular
phones, because almost all people of Japan always
carry their cellular phones together with them. One of
various Java technologies, for example CLDC (Con-
nected Limited Device Configuration) of Java 2 Micro
Edition(YuFeng and Zhu, 2001), allows us to utilize
relatively small sizes of Java program (or Java appli-
cation) on the specific cellular phones, and then it can
be downloaded from a certain Web server and perform
a mobile communication based on HTTP connection
between server and cellular phones.
Integrated Server has prepared such a Java applet
on its homepage, deliver it into clients’ cellular phone
according their requests, and communicate it in or-
der to transmit monitoring images and allow cellular
phones to browse them. As there are some constraints
on the image data size, which cellular phones can ac-
cept at the one time, for both of transmission and dis-
play of it, then our Server must reduce JPEG images
from network camera into a suitable size for cellular
phones and accumulate these images in its storage for
request of image delivery from cellular phones.
3 SYSTEM EVALUATION
3.1 Image Processing and E-mail
service
Users whose e-mail addresses have been entered in
our Integrated Server can receive e-mails about some
kinds of message from the server, when monitoring
system recognizes whether a situation of target sys-
tem needs sending message, such as emergency con-
tact or not. Our message mailing service covers the
following two cases, namely,
Normal e-mail transmission service, which in-
cludes sending message to such personal comput-
ers connected to wired / wireless LAN.
Mobile e-mail transmission service, which deals
with cellular phone and/or PHS through global
communication network.
In the former case, generally speaking, e-mail is
one of the most usual message transmission methods
between computer’s users of LAN and the Internet.
And the message to be sent may contain description
of a special URL, which tells users to get informa-
tion about image, control scheme and Java applet.
With such information, clients can access a suitable
resource for them to steer the monitoring system effi-
ciently.
On the other hand, clients sometimes leave their
seats where they sit down and work with computers.
They will carry cellular phones or PHS’s with them,
however, even at such a situation. In the later case,
cellular phone including PHS provides wide area of
e-mail service to clients, so that message from server
can be delivered to the target clients no matter where
they are.
It is very much useful for emergency message to
be sent to clients when monitoring system and clients
decide to utilize e-mail service of cellular phone and
PHS. With such message mailing service, some emer-
gency call can be realized as follows; Integrated
Server periodically obtains a series of images from
network cameras. When a new image is partially dif-
ferent from the previous one, image recognition pro-
cedure, which has been already invoked, investigates
whether the target two images have a certain differ-
ence on a fourth or a ninth of whole image or not.
If such a procedure proves some difference be-
tween two images, Integrated Server recognizes that
some change of images happens at the monitoring
point, decides to send the suitable clients e-mail by
means of the above message mailing service. Inte-
grated Server has been customized to be a mail server.
When image recognition procedure points out the dif-
ference between target images, Integrated Server has
sent e-mail to the previously entered clients with e-
mail sending facilities. Especially, sending e-mail to
cellular phone client is effectively because users al-
most always carry around such cellular phones.
3.2 Image Processing with Database
for Camera Homing
Some cameras have special platforms to be controlled
by external signal, so that they can perform smooth
homing to seize and hold the dynamic changes of
target view. Some direction information for control-
ling such a platform can be calculated effectively with
image database and image processing. Image data-
base has been realized with freeware database en-
gine named PostgreSQL and its image data can be
obtained from network camera periodically. Image
processing has been done with the following proce-
dures; two target images extracted from database are
divided into fourth or ninth pieces of sub image, cor-
responding two pieces of sub image are compared
with pixel-wise operations, and detection of dynamic
changes can be performed based on the result whether
compared two sub images are different or not. Fig-
ure4 shows a scheme of image processing with data-
base for camera homing.
Figure 4: Schema of Image Processing with Database for
Camera Homing
According to the detection and position of dynamic
changes, direction of controlling camera platform can
be computed in order to realize automatic homing.
And then the event concerned with start of automatic
homing can be informed into the specific client as
emergency contact by means of e-mail services as de-
scribed in the previous subsesction. The information
of such a situation for clients are sent with a warning
message including the URL expression which con-
tains Java Applets for PC browser and/or a special
CLDC-based Java applications for some kinds of cel-
lular phone.
The clients which have received the above infor-
mation can download the suitable Java Applets or
CLDC-base Java applications through wide area net-
work so that they can enjoy personalized (or privacy-
based) remote monitoring by means of the location-
independent way. Enhancement of our monitoring
system can be realized and supported with the above
structure and method.
4 CONCLUSION
We have described design and tentative implemen-
tation of a distributed monitoring prototype system.
This prototype has been available to obtain image
from network camera, perform power switching for
electrical device and appliance and so that it can en-
sure reliable use of electric and/or mechanical sys-
tems. Our monitoring system contains several kinds
of servers: Integrated Server is designed to play an
intensive role to instruct and integrate its subsystems
by means of network connectivity.
In our work, Web service mechanism and Java
technology are essential keys to al-low our system to
be much useful to describe several server programs
and smart GUI’s, and network-oriented applications
efficiently. Instead of Integrated Server, many sub-
systems are organized, for example, network camera,
remote sensors, remote switches and remote control
devices. They can cooperatively work together to re-
alize distributed monitoring system. Mobile comput-
ing devices, especially, wireless portable PC’s and/or
cellular are useful for client users to communicate
with monitoring and database server at any place as
well as at any time.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to express the special thanks
to Mr. Daisuke Yamane of Cmicro Inc. and Mr. Os-
amu Sadayuki of Sharp Business Computer Inc. for
their several contributions of developing the previous
version of our monitoring system. They are also very
thankful to Mr. Kazumasa Miyazaki of NTT Do-
CoMo Shikoku and Mr. Ryoichi Ozaki of Vodafone
Japan for their constructive advices to develop soft-
ware for cellular phones, as the clients of our moni-
toring system.
REFERENCES
YuFeng and Zhu, J. (2001). Wireless Java Programming
with J2ME. In Pearson Education.