Man Overboard incidents continue to be a safety concern for cruise lines and passengers.
Recent action by the cruise industry and current legislation calls for systems that can accurately detect and communicate these types of events to aid in the safety of passengers.
The latest patent issued to PureTech Systems by the United States Patent Office – US Patent No 9,569,671, “System And Method For Man Overboard Incident Detection” furthers the company’s development of geospatial video analytics to address this safety issue.
(Video Analytics safety applications now include the ability to detect when a person has gone over the side of an ocean vessel. When a man overboard detection has occurred, an alarm will be issued and in the case of PureActiv, the GPS location of the event can be indicated on the map for rescue purposes. Courtesy of PureTech Systems and YouTube)
The new technology claimed in the patent is aimed at two specific needs of the end-user, accurate detection and low false alarm rates.
Specifically, the patent protects the use of opposing videos sources monitoring the same zone and utilizing the “paired” video data along with world coordinate data, to more accurately detect a person falling.
The patent also addresses the use of fall characteristics – object size, location, time, speed, acceleration and trajectory – to accurately classify a fall event while suppressing non-fall situations that could otherwise create a false alarm.
Additional claims include the act of a person climbing up a structure, which would then create an alarm for a potential piracy or intrusion event.
“Our company continues to develop novel computer vision algorithms to address real-world problems,” explains Larry Bowe, president and CEO of PureTech Systems.
“This particular patent is the first that specifically addresses the use of video analytics for a safety application,” furthers Bowe.
“We will continue to innovate and expand our intelligent video offerings to meet market needs in security, safety and business intelligence.”
The technology protected via the patent is combined with the PureActiv geospatial video management system and user interface, designed specifically to provide the ship’s crew with real time situational awareness to facilitate immediate dispatch of search and rescue assets in the event of a man overboard event.
This is achieved through geolocation of the man overboard alarm, instant access to detection images, looping videos of the event, as well as audio notification. The complete system includes a full alarm database and video playback capability.
Further to addressing man overboard events in the cruise line market, the technology is directly applicable to the broader safety category of long fall events, which are a safety concern to bridges, oil platforms, ferry operators, commercial shipping, as well as, the military.
The new technology is fully integrated into the PureActiv geospatial video management system, developed by PureTech Systems, which is deployed in the United States and internationally.
The Man Overboard Incident Detection patent furthers the technology to aid cruise lines and other markets to quickly and accurately detect long fall events.
PureTech Systems is a manufacturer of wide-area perimeter surveillance software solutions including internally developed outdoor video analytics, multi-sensor integration and a map-based (real object size) command and control- serving fortune 1000 firms, petro-chemical, water and electric utilities, seaports, airports and federal, state and local governments.
