Using Hand Phone to Activate and Deactivate the Car Camera - Research Paper Example

Using Hand Phone to Activate and Deactivate the Car Camera Address Robbery and intentional destruction of vehicles is a common thing in most of the countries at present and United States is also not an exception. Some people engage in robbery or destruction of vehicles for money, thrill etc. It is difficult for the owners to monitor their vehicles all the time using conventional means. Car cameras and hand phones are arrived in the recent past in order to protect the vehicles from unauthorized usages or theft. Car camera is a must have surveillance equipment for those who are owners of commercial fleet vehicles such as taxis, busses, vans, shuttles etc in order to prevent robbery or vandalism of their vehicles. This paper analyses the usage of hand phone to activate and deactivate the car camera. Keywords— Car camera, Hand phone, Monitoring, Surveillance, Activate, Deactivate I. Introduction “Camera security systems usually incorporate a central computer or storage device to record video. Most can also be hooked up to monitors for immediate viewing. In recent years, wireless technology has made it possible to eliminate cumbersome wires and make camera security systems more versatile. These wireless cameras can integrate with a personal computer, and some can even be monitored by cell phone. Wireless cameras transmit to a wireless receiver that can translate the signal back into analogue video or simply send it to a digital storage device, such as a DVR” [8] Car cameras can be used as an electronically controlled security guard robot to the cars. Car cameras or electronic surveillance system excels where the manual security measures fail. Car cameras can be used to photograph robbery or intrusion or destruction of the vehicle using remote control. It can be controlled using a hand phone as well. Car camera has various features like remote control, motion sensor to automatically activate the Mobile Cam, photo documentation of vandalism, theft, and altercations, ability to take and store up to 680 digital images, view playback on home TV and monitors, record images on any VCR, displays date and time, ability to capture images at night or in very low light, easy to adjust and install. [1]. It is easy for the vehicle owners or the police force to track the activities of the intruders using the combinational services of car cam and hand phone. In “Normal” mode, the car camera begins taking pictures as soon as it is switched on.  The camera function is so designed that when the memory becomes full it can overwrite on the pictures starting from first. It is possible to switch off the overwrite mode if needed. As per the United States law, as long as the passenger is informed or warned that they are under visual surveillance, nothing wrong in taking pictures of the passengers inside the vehicle. Under most Data Protection and Privacy legislation the person who takes the photographs must destroy any pictures that are not required or meaningless. [1]. The introduction of car cams and hand phones has resulted in the reduction of vehicle thefts in America. It is a big blessing for the car owners that they can monitor their vehicles sitting at the convenience of their home or office using a hand phone. The vehicle owner should have the basic knowledge about the operations of the equipments, both the car cam and the hand phone in order make their monitoring really works. They should know how to activate or deactivate the camera using their hand phones. They should also make sure that both the car cam and the hand phone working well in tandem to achieve effective control of their vehicles. II. Using Hand Phone to Activate or Deactivate Car Cams All cell phones or hand phones should have an additional menu added for turning the cell phone into standardized remote control. The intent is that the cell phone has a much broader area of coverage then any media we individually control. So we could operate many of the things we have in our lives more effortlessly [2] Cell Phones are an essential commodity needed even for a layman of the current century. It is widely used for instant communication purposes. But as science and technology develops, the utility of cell phones are increasing. More features are attached to the current generation of cell phones. Earlier cell phones were used only for communication purposes whereas it is used widely now for taking photographs, recording videos, surfing the internet, watching the television programs etc. Recently the advancements in Global Positioning Systems (GPS) have unveiled one more utility for the mobile phones or hand phones. With a little modification, it can be used for controlling the car cameras using remote sensing technology. The basic operations of a car cam and cell phone to take photographs of the passengers can be summarised as follows. A cellular phone is used to make a walkie-talkie type connection with the camera disposed within the vehicle. The cellular phone sends a message to the car cam disposed within the vehicle. The message instructs the cam to switch on or switch off its functions. The cam is electrically connected to the vehicle. Thus, the messages sent over the cell phone are used to control car cam functions [3] The Vehicular Surveillance and Sensing System comprise of a car camera and a 3G-based mobile device for car security applications. On the car side, it consists of a CO2 sensor, a camera module, a 3G module, and a microprocessor. On the user side, only a 3G mobile phone is needed. VS3 provides the following features: (i) it can be triggered by events detected on car, (ii) events can be abnormal air quality or potential burglary, and (iii) it supports text or multimedia interaction with users. Application scenarios include detecting an abnormal CO2 level or potential car burglary, which triggers VS3 to transmit SMS, MMS, or interactive video call to the vehicle owner, who can then monitor the car situation in return. VS3 thus demonstrates a new car security and burglarproof prototype.[4] The basic diagram of the functioning of the whole system is illustrated in figure 1 Fig. 1 General outline of the security system [Ref 4] The microprocessor on the car side is accepting commands from the mobile phones in order to control the operations of the camera. The microprocessor can be programmed in such a way that it can trigger it operations either from the commands received from the car owner through mobile signals or it can trigger the camera operations immediately when some abnormalities happened either inside or outside the car. Moreover, the microprocessor will be able to communicate with the car owner by sending messages to the mobile phones of the car owner regarding the abnormalities. These messages can be in the form of some warning alarms or photographs of the suspected events. Thus the microprocessor might be able to avoid all the unwanted recordings and it will start its operations only at the instruction of the owner or when the abnormalities happened. The MMS messages send by the microprocessor based on the inputs it gets from the camera might be helpful for the owner or the police authorities to track the culprits for the abnormal events in and out of the car. Figure 2 shows the application part of the car security system mentioned above. The current world or people are busy with so many commitments and in the run for fulfilling the commitments; they often forget lot of things. For example, suppose a working mother might have forgotten to drop her kid in the day care centre on her way to office. Consider that the child was sleeping at the back seat while she was driving. In every chance, she may lock the child inside the car while climbing the stairs of her office. She will realize the fact that the child has not reached the day care centre only when the communication occurs between the lady and the day care centre. She can immediately search her child inside her car by switching on the car camera using her mobile phone. Fig. 2 A car security application [Ref 4] Figure 3 shows a typical car burglarproof application. When the burglar approaches the car which is parked somewhere, the microprocessor foresees the danger and will immediately switch on the camera. Moreover, it will provide the warning signals to the car owner immediately using the 3G network. Fig. 3 A car burglarproof application [Ref 4] Smart surveillance systems use a number of automatic video analysis techniques like object detection, tracking and classification in conjunction with database and web application servers to provide users with the capability of distributed smart surveillance. [5] The current robbers and the terrorists are using sophisticated methods to execute their criminal activities which made the task of establishing the crime more difficult. As the science and technology advances, new methods also developed and implemented by the anti social elements. So the combined effort of the public and the police with the help of advanced surveillance systems is essential for finding the criminals. III. Advantages of Using Car Camera System The major advantages of using car camera surveillance system are; Discourages and may eliminate criminal activity to your personal property; Watches your teenager when you cannot; Monitors vehicle activities in and around your vehicle when active; Increased safety for you and your passengers; Records collisions to evaluate other drivers liability; Protects you against inflated or fraudulent claims, staged accidents, and faked injuries; Useful with the investigation of vehicle collisions, acts of violence and other incidents; Recorded content can be used in a court environment; Supplements or operates independently of existing security systems and Reduction of liability losses [6] Apart from eliminating the risk associated with vehicle burglary, car camera can help the parents to tract the activities of their teenage children. In America like countries, teenagers are often misuse the car for lot of antisocial behaviours like drug abuse, alcohol consumption, sexual activities etc. The parents can monitor all such things if they installed the camera in their vehicles and connected it to their mobile phones using 3G networks. Another advantage of car camera is the monitoring of what is going on around the vehicle. It is possible for antisocial elements to cause damages to the vehicles parked somewhere in the absence of car cams. In some countries, some people enjoy the thrill of causing damages to others or their properties just like serial killing. Such people derive pleasure from damaging the attractive and expensive vehicles purely because of jealousy or something else. Car cams can track the activities of such people and reporting it to the authorities or the vehicle owner. “Is your vehicle being criminally damaged by an ex-lover, a deranged neighbour, disgruntled co-worker or neighbourhood punks? Let us help you get you the proof you need by getting the video graphic evidence to bring to the police. Criminal damage to cars and vehicles is a very widespread problem in America today.  Sociopathic persons find and get relief in taking out their frustrations on someone by vandalizing vehicles, slashing tires, "keying" cars, smashing car windows and other intolerable and incorrigible acts.  After all, the police cannot do anything right---unit it happens? They only take reports after the fact and we know that it can be a very frustrating ordeal”[7] Another major advantage of car cams is establishing the crimes when a collision occurs between two vehicles or when an accident takes place. Police or the authorities can compare the pictures taken by the vehicle cams to arrive at conclusion or to establish the crimes. Car owners cannot deny such charges since their activities were monitored electronically. Court also accepts the evidences captured by the vehicle cameras when they take decisions about who is the culprit. “With the cameras installed in police cars, they can record any and all activity committed by police or suspects. The police would have irrefutable evidence when they capture a suspect or a police committing a crime against the suspect. The evidence is a very effective tool when appearing in a court hearing or trial. Surveillance cameras send a direct signal to the police station and other mobile data units across state lines and within the police department. Studies have shown that the continued use of surveillance cameras installed, not only in police cars, but on government issued equipment, such as: a telephone pole. The crime rate had decreased, the prostitution related reports decreased by 42%”[9] IV. Disadvantages of using car cameras Even though car cameras possess immense utility to the public it can be misused also in several ways. For example, consider two lovers engaged in sexual activities inside the car without knowing that their activities are monitored by their parents. If the lovers are adults, they have every right to engage in such activities whereas the car cams serve as serious threat to their privacy matters. On the other hand, a person can persuade his partner to engage in sexual activities inside his/her vehicle and the photographs obtained through the car cams can be misused by him. He/ she can post such photographs in internet or can threaten the lover for further exploitations using the photographs taken by the car cams. In short, car cams can be misused for personal purposes. Another disadvantage associated with car cams is that any problems caused to the communication network or the microprocessor/ computer used for the analysis of the data can severely damage the functioning of the system. Electronic systems can perform differently at times because of system failures or the external parameters like the weather variations. V. Conclusions The car camera and the mobile phones combined together give the vehicle owner the luxury of the protection of their cars even while staying in distant places. The owner can be informed immediately as some abnormalities detected both in and out of the vehicle using camera and hand phone. Moreover the owner can monitor what is going on inside the vehicle whenever he is in need by activating the camera using his 3G mobile phones. Such constant monitoring can prevent vehicles from burglar by capturing evidences to catch the thief using the camera. Furthermore, it is possible for the owner to monitor inside of his car if kept something inside accidently and forget about it later. References [1] Car camera. 2009. Spy Chest Inc Accessed on 28 October 2009 from [2] Why not.net. Cell Phones as Remote Control. Accessed on 28 October 2009 from [3] US Patent 7091825 - Method and system for vehicle control using walkie-talkie type cellular phone. 2009. Accessed on 28 October 2009 from [4] Lien-Wu Chenyz, Kun-Ze Syuey, and Yu-Chee Tsengy. VS3: A Vehicular Surveillance and Sensing System for Security Applications Accessed on 28 October 2009 from [5] S3-R1: the IBM smart surveillance system-release 1.2009. Accessed on 28 October 2009 from [6] Mobile Watchman™ EDR car security camera works when the car is turned off. 2009. Accessed on 28 October 2009 from [7] Spy Source. 2009. Criminal Damage to Your Vehicle? Stop Them Now. Accessed on 28 October 2009 from [8] Camera Security System. 2009. Accessed on 28 October 2009 from [9] Advantages And Disadvantages Of Technology. 2009. Accessed on 28 October 2009 from Read More