Assisted child-minding based on visual activity monitoring in a home camera surveillance system

Abstract

Constant attention and supervision are required when you have a baby or a toddler at

home. Still fresh and unknown to their environment, these kids have high curiosity and

energy to explore their surroundings and the stuffs around them. Careful parents would try

their best to child‐proof or baby‐proof their house by removing their glass table or vase so

as to not let any accident happen to their beloved kids. But even without dangerous items

around the house, unintentional injuries still occurs (E.g. hitting head on the crib).

Parents or child minders can’t possibly watch the kids 24/7. There will be times where the

call of nature has to be answered, where dinner has to be cooked, and the toddler has to be

left on his or her own for a while.

The objective of this project was to explore the possibilities of creating a camera

surveillance with the help of the OpenCV Libraries. By exploring a couple of functionalities

the OpenCV library has, the camera surveillance will be equipped with tracking

functionalities and will be able to notify the parents or child minder if the child is near any

dangerous part of the room or even the house (based on the position of the camera and

the number of cameras) by sounding out an alarm.