Systems and methods for load balancing in a video surveillance system

A surveillance system comprising:

• a first video camera;
• a network;
• a second video camera operatively coupled to the first video camera via the network;
• the first video camera configured to:
• capture a video stream;
• process the video stream to:
• identify a motion region in a video frame of the video stream that corresponds to motion in the video frame;
• identify an object of interest that correspond to the motion region in the video frame;
• crop out a region of interest (ROI) in the video frame that corresponds to the object of interest;
• send the cropped-out region of interest (ROI) of the video frame to the second video camera via the network;
• the second video camera is configured to:
• receive the cropped-out region of interest (ROI) of the video frame from the first video camera via the network;
• execute a video analytics algorithm on the cropped-out region of interest (ROI) of the video frame of the video stream captured by the first video camera, resulting in a video analytics result;
• and
• output the video analytics result via the network.

A method for load balancing video analytic processing among two or more of a plurality of network connected video cameras, each network connected video camera including a video camera for capturing a respective video stream and processing resources, the method comprising:

• a first video camera of the plurality of network connected video cameras identifying an object of interest in a video frame of a video stream captured by the first video camera;
• the first video camera determining whether to execute a video analytics algorithm on the object of interest to identify further characteristics of the object of interest;
• when it is determined to execute the video analytics algorithm on the object of interest, the first video camera determining whether the first video camera has sufficient idle processing resources to perform the video analytics algorithm on the object of interest, and if so, the first video camera executing the video analytics algorithm on the object of interest, and if not:
• the first video camera identifying a second video camera of the plurality of network connected video cameras that has sufficient idle processing resources to perform the video analytics algorithm on the object of interest, and sending a cropped-out region of interest (ROI) in the video frame of the video frame of the video stream captured by the first video camera to the second video camera;
• the second video camera:
• receiving the cropped-out region of interest (ROI) of the video frame from the first video camera;
• executing the video analytics algorithm on the cropped-out region of interest (ROI) of the video frame of the video stream captured by the first video camera, resulting in a video analytics result;
• and
• returning the video analytics result to the first video camera.