RTLS, GPS and video surveillance. Instead of or together?

Detect, position (locate) and identify ...
This is important not only when catching the offender. To know the location of a specific object - a person, a vehicle, a cargo, a certain object is also necessary for effective management of processes, prevention of emergency incidents and liquidation of their consequences, and finally, even during such a routine operation as inventory, (for example, during the transfer of a shift).

Unfortunately, in contrast to the process control system, where information on the technical process parameters is quickly and accurately determined by instrumentation, the positioning and identification of moving objects in most cases cannot be performed without human intervention and human-specific errors, voluntary or involuntary. Whether a girl with a scanner in stock or security in front of a dozen or so monitors - the influence of the human factor is inevitable. And with the intensification and increase in the scale of production, the price of a possible error becomes ever higher.
Therefore, the automatic identification and positioning of moving objects without human intervention is becoming an increasingly urgent task.
About possible solutions and will be discussed in this topic.

Now for detection, positioning and identification are most often used GPS (mainly for monitoring vehicles), video surveillance, and in recent years also real-time positioning systems - RTLS. However, each of these systems has its limitations.
Satellite navigation systems (GPS, GLONASS) provide positioning and identification in vast areas, but do not work indoors and require that the object being monitored be equipped with a device with a unique code (in fact, a tag).
Video surveillance systems detect and accompany many targets, signal possible violations, but are not able to reliably identify (identify) the object of observation. Especially in cases when the object of interest must be distinguished from a variety of similar ones (find the intruder among the set of "friends").
RTLS are used for various purposes in a variety of applications , allowing you to control the location and movement of objects and reliably identify them both outside and inside the premises. But monitored objects, as in the case of GPS, must be labeled, and objects that are not labeled cannot be seen by the system.
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It turns out that none of the listed systems can solve the task in full. The solution could be sharing these systems. This integration opens up opportunities not available to systems individually.

Integration Opportunities

Pass-through vehicle fleet monitoring
The integration of satellite navigation (GLONASS, GPS) and RTLS makes it possible to control the movement of vehicles not only in open space, where there is a direct view of satellites, but with the help of RTLS and in covered courtyards, buildings, and structures. The automated management system for motor transport and / or logistics will receive data not only on driving routes, speeds and delays in the way of transport and / or cargo, but also on the time and place of loading / unloading, maintenance and repair, and waiting for maintenance.
Automatic detection and signaling of intruders
In the case of the joint use of the intelligent video surveillance system and RTLS, it becomes possible to compare the RTLS data on the identification and positioning of controlled (“their”) objects with the video surveillance data. For example, if the motion sensor of a video system detects a new object, and the RTLS does not fix such an object in this sector, the system will give a security signal about a possible intrusion of an outsider, and an image of the intruder will be displayed on the console and its location will be indicated.
Remote recognition
Using RTLS and an inexpensive video camera at the entrances to protected areas, you can automatically transfer to the access control system and / or remotely output the image of a person in front of the camera and his picture from the account card to the operator’s console. Comparison of images and authentication can be performed by an automated access control system or (a cheaper option) by a security officer. In the second case, several checkpoints can be remotely serviced by one controller. Such a method is more reliable than card tolerance and cheaper than biometric recognition (retina, fingerprints).
Autonomous automated control
The combination of the two previous options for sharing video surveillance and RTLS allows you to organize automated control of remote sites or individual premises, territories, buildings, structures without the direct presence of security officers at the site - dispatchers, security guards, doormen, etc.

I have listed just a few of the most obvious options for sharing satellite navigation systems, video surveillance systems and real-time positioning systems. Specific decisions will depend on the tasks solved in a particular application (in particular, one of these solutions in the energy sector is mentioned in the publication ).
But in any case, the sharing of fundamentally different systems of detection, localization, identification and monitoring allows you to take another step towards reducing the influence of the human factor when receiving and entering data into the ACS in an area where it was previously not achievable.
All in the hands of developers of automated systems.

About the possibilities of the new technology for many RTLS can be found here .