Group 5 (2005)

Student Members:
Stephanie Leahy
Matthew Hoeg
Manny Montrond
John Gifford

Faculty Advisor:
Dr. Gilbert Fain

Project Title:
Laboratory Security System

Project Description (provided by group):
The main goal of this project is to design a working security system. This system is set up to take pictures or videos in ECE lab rooms 217, 221, and 222. There are two different modes of operation that have been set up on each of the computers, 1. Day Mode, 2. Night/Weekend Mode. During the Day Mode the camera is set up to take and record pictures every 3 seconds. This will allow the user to monitor the lab rooms during the hours of operation. During the Night/Weekend Mode the camera is set up to record videos whenever there is motion detected in the lab. The video will continue for 30 seconds and then wait for motion to be detected again. If motion is detected after these 30 seconds are over then the video will begin again and be recorded as a different video. This will give the viewer plenty of time to replay the short videos as many times as necessary to figure out the demographics of the unwanted motion.

The user is able to access these pictures and videos through a database that is accessible via the Internet. The user friendly website has a display screen that the user is able to click on each lab room, which will show them every picture that has been saved over the past 48 hours. If there have been any videos that have been recorded in the past 48 hours then they will also be accessible. After the videos and pictures have been accessible for 48 hours they are deleted from the database. The cameras are connected to the computers using RG-59 cable. The computers are each connected to the network using Category 5 Coaxial Cable that has been weaved through Group 2 (The Science and Engineering Building).

The motion sensing that is directly from the ConquerCam software is activated when the software itself recognizes a change in pixels in each frame. In order to make this happen, we have connected a motion sensor to a lamp to add more light to the room. This low lighting activates the ConquerCam motion sensing, which begins the video taking, but will not give the intruder any unnecessary light.

This security system will hopefully help the ECE department to prevent and destroyed or stolen items in the lab rooms. If there was more time we would have been able to secure more than four lab rooms, but because of the normal problems that we encountered and the necessary solutions there was no time to go above and beyond the requirements.