Video surveillance system with pilot and slave cameras

A video surveillance system for monitoring an area comprising:

• a pilot camera for monitoring the area and producing an image of the area;
• a slave camera for monitoring at least part of the area;
• means for automatically determining a location of an object in the area monitored by the pilot camera from the image of the area and for producing a signal representing the location of the object;
• means for causing the slave camera to track the object based on the signal representing the location of the object by panning or tilting the slave camera.

A video surveillance system for monitoring an area, comprising:

• a pilot camera, comprising a fisheye lens, for producing an image of the area;
• means for analyzing the image of the area to automatically determine a location of an object in the area and for generating a signal representing the location of the object in the area;
• a slave camera;
• means for causing the slave camera to track the object based on the signal representing the location of the object in the area;
• means for compressing the image of the area to produce a compressed image;
• means for transmitting the compressed image to a remote monitoring station.

For use in electronic surveillance system, a method of monitoring an area comprising the steps of:

• monitoring the area by means of a pilot camera comprising a fisheye lens, thereby producing an image of the area;
• processing the image of the area to automatically determine the location of an object in the area and producing a signal representative of a location of the object;
• controlling a slave camera such that the slave camera tracks the object based on the signal representative of the location of the object;
• compressing the image of the area;
• transmitting the compressed image to a remote monitoring station.