System and method for object identification and behavior characterization using video analysis

A method of characterizing an activity comprising:

• obtaining a stream of video image frames from a monitoring device;
• identifying objects of interest from the stream of video image frames;
• providing feature information of the objects of interest in response to the stream of video image frames;
• classifying postures of the objects of interest in response to the feature information;
• obtaining standard object behaviors from a storage memory device;
• and
• characterizing behaviors of the objects of interest in response to a comparison between the postures of the objects of interest and the standard object behaviors, wherein the characterizing the behaviors of the objects of interest further includes analyzing temporal ordering of behavior primitive using time-series analysis to identify a transition from a previous behavior primitive to a next behavior primitive.

An apparatus for characterizing an activity comprising:

• means for obtaining a stream of video image frames from a monitoring device;
• means for identifying objects of interest from the stream of video image frames;
• means for providing feature information of the objects of interest in response to the stream of video image frames;
• means for classifying postures of the objects of interest in response to the feature information;
• means for obtaining standard object behaviors from a storage memory device;
• and
• means for characterizing behaviors of the objects of interest in response to comparison between the postures of the objects of interest and the standard object behaviors;
• wherein the means for characterizing further includes means for analyzing temporal ordering of behavior primitives using transitional information from a previous behavior primitive to a next behavior primitive;
• wherein the means for analyzing temporal ordering of behavior primitives further includes means for utilizing Hidden Markov Model time-series analysis.

A machine-readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions, which cause a digital processing system to perform a function, the function comprising:

• obtaining a stream of video image frames from a monitoring device;
• identifying objects of interest from the stream of video image frames;
• providing feature information of the objects of interest in response to the stream of video image frames;
• classifying postures of the objects of interest in response to the feature information;
• obtaining standard object behaviors from a storage memory device;
• and
• characterizing behaviors of the objects of interest in response to comparison between the postures of the objects of interest and the standard object behaviors, wherein the characterizing the behaviors of the objects of interest further includes analyzing temporal ordering of behavior primitives.