Low-power-consumption monitoring camera equipment and full-time snapshot method

Abstract

The invention provides low-power-consumption monitoring camera equipment and a full-time snapshot method. The snapshot method comprises the following steps: capturing a human body activity event and generating a starting signal; controlling an image sensor to collect an original image in response to the starting signal, storing the original image through a first memory, and generating a wake-up signal at the same time; the main control chip is awakened in response to the awakening signal, an original image collected by the image sensor is coded and decoded through the main control chip after awakening to obtain a first video clip, and meanwhile, an original image stored in the first memory before the main control chip is awakened is obtained; encoding and decoding the original image before the main control chip is awakened to obtain a second video clip, and splicing the first video clip and the second video clip to obtain a complete human body activity event video after the human body activity event occurs; and storing the complete human body activity event video through a second memory to complete snapshot. The method can solve the problem that videos are lost in the first few seconds when a human body activity event occurs.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present application belongs to the field of security monitoring technology, and in particular relates to a low-power monitoring camera device and a full-time capture method. Background Art

[0002] Existing consumer-grade low-power surveillance camera devices (such as camera doorbells or smart camera door locks, etc.) usually use batteries as a power supply to match low-power usage scenarios. Such low-power surveillance camera devices usually use PIR (Passive Infrared Sensor) to detect active human bodies to achieve the purpose of security monitoring.

[0003] However, low-power surveillance camera equipment will enter a sleep state when there is no human activity event in the picture. When a human activity event occurs in the picture, the PIR will wake up the main control chip. Since the main control chip needs to participate in the encoding and decoding work throughout the recording process, there is a very high delay from sleep to wakeup and controlling the image sensor to start recording, which will cause the first half of the recorded human activity event to be lost, and the complete activity event cannot be recorded, resulting in a loss of user experience and even property safety risks. Summary of the invention

[0004] The purpose of this application is to provide a low-power monitoring camera device and a full-time capture method to solve or alleviate at least one problem in the background technology.

[0005] On the one hand, the technical solution of the present application is: a full-time capture method of a low-power monitoring camera device, comprising: Capture human activity events and generate start signals; In response to the start signal, the image sensor is controlled to collect the original image, and the original image is stored in the first memory, and a wake-up signal is generated at the same time; The main control chip is awakened in response to the awakening signal, and after awakening, the main control chip encodes and decodes the original image collected by the image sensor to obtain a first video clip, and at the same time, the original image of the main control chip before awakening stored in the first memory is obtained, and the original image of the main control chip before awakening is encoded and decoded to obtain a second video clip, and the first video clip and the second video clip are spliced ​​to obtain a complete human activity event video after the human activity event occurs; The complete human activity event video is stored in the second memory to complete the capture.

[0006] In an optional implementation manner of the present application, the first memory and the second memory are different storage devices, and the read and write speed of the first memory is greater than the read and write speed of the second memory.

[0007] In an optional implementation manner of the present application, the second memory is a built-in storage device or an external storage device.

[0008] In an optional implementation manner of the present application, when splicing the first video segment and the second video segment, the second video segment is inserted into the front end of the first video segment, thereby generating a complete human activity event video in time sequence.

[0009] In an optional implementation manner of the present application, when the main control chip wakes up, the first memory stops storing the original image captured by the image sensor.

[0010] In an optional implementation manner of the present application, when a human activity event ends or a human activity event cannot be captured, a stop signal is generated, and in response to the stop signal, the acquisition of the original image is stopped and a sleep signal is generated; In response to the sleep signal, the main control chip stops encoding and decoding the original image and returns to a low-power sleep state.

[0011] On the other hand, the technical solution provided by the present application is: a low-power monitoring camera device, comprising: Passive infrared sensor, used to capture human activity events and generate a start signal; A microcontroller, configured to control the image sensor to acquire the original image in response to the start signal and generate a wake-up signal; An image sensor, used for collecting raw images in response to the control of the microcontroller; A first memory, used for temporarily storing the original image captured by the image sensor; a main control chip, configured to respond to the wake-up signal and wake up from a dormant state, and after waking up, to encode and decode the original image captured by the image sensor to obtain a first video clip, and simultaneously obtain the original image before the main control chip is awakened and stored in the first memory, and encode and decode the original image before the main control chip is awakened to obtain a second video clip, and splice the first video clip and the second video clip to obtain a complete human activity event video after the human activity event occurs; The second memory is used to store the complete human activity event video after the human activity event occurs.

[0012] In an optional implementation manner of the present application, the first memory adopts a pseudo-static random access memory.

[0013] In an optional implementation manner of the present application, a startup speed of the image sensor is faster than a wake-up speed of the main control chip.

[0014] In an optional implementation manner of the present application, the image sensor is only used for collecting original images, and does not perform encoding and decoding of the original images.

[0015] The low-power monitoring camera equipment and full-time capture method of the present application solve the problem of losing the first few seconds of video recording when a human activity event occurs in the prior art. When security incidents such as theft, robbery, and illegal entry occur, it can start capturing images and recording more quickly, thereby better ensuring the effectiveness and timeliness of monitoring. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0016] In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solution provided by the present application, the following is a brief introduction to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the accompanying drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present application.

[0017] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of the startup working process of an existing low-power surveillance camera device.

[0018] Figure 2 Schematic diagram of the low-power surveillance camera device of the present application.

[0019] Figure 3 This is a schematic diagram of the startup working process of the low-power monitoring camera device of this application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0020] In order to make the purpose, technical solutions and advantages of the implementation of this application clearer, the technical solutions in the embodiments of this application will be described in more detail below in conjunction with the drawings in the embodiments of this application.

[0021] Some users are in an environment without electricity but with network coverage. It is impossible to use some surveillance cameras with long power supply by pulling wires. Therefore, low-power surveillance cameras using batteries become the best choice. In order to save power, low-power surveillance cameras generally use event recording for monitoring. Figure 1 The figure shows a schematic diagram of the event shooting process of the existing low-power monitoring camera equipment. When a human activity event occurs, the PIR (Passive Infrared Sensor) captures the human activity event and is triggered. The PIR sends a start signal to the MCU (Microcontroller Unit). The MCU sends a recording signal to the image sensor and a wake-up signal to the SoC (System on Chip). The image sensor sends the captured original image (RAW image) to the SoC for encoding and decoding processing. The video processed by the SoC is stored in the storage device.

[0022] However, when a human activity event occurs, the time it takes for the PIR to trigger and wake up the SoC and for the SoC to encode and decode the original image is very long, estimated to be 200ms~400ms, or even higher. This results in the storage device storing only the last period of the event (usually only a few seconds) after the actual activity event occurs. If a security event such as theft occurs at this time, due to the PIR triggering information interaction, the SoC wake-up time delays the video recording of the first few seconds of the event, resulting in image loss, and often fails to meet the actual needs of monitoring security.

[0023] In order to overcome the above problems, Figure 2 As shown, the present application provides a low-power monitoring camera device, which includes: Passive infrared sensor (PIR), used to capture human activity events and generate a start signal based on human activity events; A microcontroller (MCU) is used to receive a start signal generated by the passive infrared sensor, and control the image sensor to collect raw images according to the start signal, and generate a wake-up signal at the same time; Image sensor (Sensor), used to collect original images under the control of the microcontroller; A first memory, used for temporarily storing the original image captured by the image sensor; A main control chip is used to wake up according to a wake-up signal, obtain an original image captured by an image sensor after waking up, and perform encoding and decoding operations on the original image to generate a first video clip, and at the same time receive the original image of the main control chip before waking up temporarily stored in the first memory, and perform encoding and decoding operations on the original image before waking up the main control chip to generate a second video clip, and splice the first video clip and the second video clip to obtain a complete human activity event video; and The second memory is used to store complete human activity event videos.

[0024] In the present application, the first memory is preferably a pseudo static random access memory (PSRAM), which stores the original image captured by the image sensor during the fast start period by utilizing the fast read and write characteristics of the pseudo static random access memory.

[0025] In the present application, the second memory may be a built-in storage device (such as an SD card) or a remote storage device connected via wire or wireless connection.

[0026] In addition, the low-power monitoring camera device of the present application may also include a battery module, which is usually a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, so that the monitoring camera device can provide long-term operation with high-definition video recording and intelligent motion detection functions.

[0027] The method for the low-power monitoring camera device (IP Camera, IPC for short) of this application to perform full-time capture is as follows: Capture human activity events through passive infrared sensors (PIR) and generate start signals; The microcontroller (MCU) controls the image sensor to capture the original image according to the start signal generated by the passive infrared sensor, and generates a wake-up signal to wake up the main control chip (SoC); The image sensor starts to collect the original image in response to the control of the microcontroller. The startup time of the image sensor is much faster than that of the main control chip, so the original image can be collected immediately. The first memory temporarily stores the original image captured by the image sensor; In response to the wake-up signal, the main control chip is awakened from the low-power sleep state. After awakening, the main control chip enters the recording mode, and performs encoding and decoding operations on the original image captured by the image sensor in real time at this time to obtain a first video clip. At the same time, the main control chip obtains the original image before the main control chip is awakened and stored in the first memory, and performs encoding and decoding operations on it to obtain a second video clip. The main control chip splices the first video clip and the second video clip to obtain a complete human activity event video after the human activity event occurs; The second memory stores the complete human activity event video.

[0028] In a preferred embodiment of the present application, when the main control chip performs video splicing, the second video segment is inserted into the front end of the first video segment, thereby generating a complete human activity event video in time sequence.

[0029] Furthermore, when the human activity event ends or the passive infrared sensor detects no more human activity, the passive infrared sensor will generate a stop signal. After the stop signal is sent to the microcontroller, the microcontroller controls the image sensor to stop collecting the original image and sends a sleep signal to the main control chip. The main control chip stops recording the video according to the sleep signal and returns to a low-power sleep state to save battery energy. The low-power monitoring camera device automatically shuts down or enters the monitoring mode again, waiting for the next event trigger.

[0030] It should be noted that the image sensor in the present application can only capture raw images, and it cannot record videos (i.e., encoding and decoding). On the one hand, the image sensor itself does not have a codec, and the image captured at this time is a raw image (RAW image), which occupies a large capacity. The first memory cannot bear it when transmitting the video, and the video recording and transmission power consumption is relatively large. Therefore, the image sensor in the present application only performs capture operations, and the encoding and decoding of the raw image and the video synthesis and splicing are completed by the main control chip.

[0031] In some optional embodiments of the present application, when the main control chip wakes up, the first memory stops storing the original image captured by the image sensor. At this time, the original image captured by the image sensor and the original image captured by the image sensor before the main control chip is awakened and stored in the first memory can generate a complete human activity event. The first memory stops storing the original image captured by the image sensor after the main control chip is awakened, which can increase the service life of the first memory.

[0032] like Figure 3 As shown, compared with the solution in the prior art in which the microcontroller controls the image sensor to collect and wakes up the main control chip for video recording, the low-power monitoring camera equipment and full-time capture method provided by the present application are that when the image sensor starts to collect the original image, since the image sensor starts much faster than the main control chip, the main control chip has not yet woken up at this time, and the original image collected by the image sensor cannot be stored in the first memory such as the SD card through the IO interface of the main control chip. The present application temporarily stores the original image before the main control chip is awakened through the second storage, and after the main control chip is awakened, it is called out to be spliced ​​with the original image collected by the image sensor after awakening, thereby obtaining the video recording of the entire time period when the human activity event occurs, avoiding the loss of the video recording a few seconds before the human activity event occurs.

[0033] The low-power monitoring camera equipment and full-time capture method of the present application solve the problem of losing the first few seconds of video recording when a human activity event occurs in the prior art. When security incidents such as theft, robbery, and illegal entry occur, it can start capturing images and recording more quickly, thereby better ensuring the effectiveness and timeliness of monitoring.

[0034] The above is only a specific implementation of the present application, but the protection scope of the present application is not limited thereto. Any changes or substitutions that can be easily thought of by a person skilled in the art within the technical scope disclosed in the present application should be included in the protection scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be based on the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A full-time snapshot method of a low-power monitoring camera device, characterized in that: include: Capture human activity events and generate start signals; In response to the start signal, the image sensor is controlled to collect the original image, and the original image is stored in the first memory, and a wake-up signal is generated at the same time; The main control chip is awakened in response to the awakening signal, and after awakening, the main control chip encodes and decodes the original image collected by the image sensor to obtain a first video clip, and at the same time, the original image of the main control chip before awakening stored in the first memory is obtained, and the original image of the main control chip before awakening is encoded and decoded to obtain a second video clip, and the first video clip and the second video clip are spliced ​​to obtain a complete human activity event video after the human activity event occurs; The complete human activity event video is stored in the second memory to complete the capture.

2. The full-time snapshot method of low-power monitoring camera equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that: The first memory and the second memory are different storage devices, and the read and write speed of the first memory is greater than the read and write speed of the second memory.

3. The full-time snapshot method of low-power monitoring camera equipment according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that: The second memory is a built-in storage device or an external storage device.

4. The full-time snapshot method of low-power monitoring camera equipment according to claim 3, characterized in that: When splicing the first video segment and the second video segment, the second video segment is inserted into the front end of the first video segment, thereby generating a complete human activity event video in time sequence.

5. The full-time snapshot method of low-power monitoring camera equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that: When the main control chip wakes up, the first memory stops storing the original image captured by the image sensor.

6. The full-time snapshot method of low-power monitoring camera equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that: When the human activity event ends or the human activity event cannot be captured, a stop signal is generated, and in response to the stop signal, the acquisition of the original image is stopped and a sleep signal is generated; In response to the sleep signal, the main control chip stops encoding and decoding the original image and returns to a low-power sleep state.

7. A low-power monitoring camera device, characterized in that: include: Passive infrared sensor, used to capture human activity events and generate a start signal; A microcontroller, configured to control the image sensor to acquire the original image in response to the start signal and generate a wake-up signal; An image sensor, used for collecting raw images in response to the control of the microcontroller; A first memory, used for temporarily storing the original image captured by the image sensor; a main control chip, configured to respond to the wake-up signal and wake up from a dormant state, and after waking up, to encode and decode the original image captured by the image sensor to obtain a first video clip, and simultaneously obtain the original image before the main control chip is awakened and stored in the first memory, and encode and decode the original image before the main control chip is awakened to obtain a second video clip, and splice the first video clip and the second video clip to obtain a complete human activity event video after the human activity event occurs; The second memory is used to store the complete human activity event video after the human activity event occurs.

8. The low-power monitoring camera device according to claim 7, characterized in that: The first memory is a pseudo-static random access memory.

9. The low-power monitoring camera device according to claim 7, characterized in that: The startup speed of the image sensor is faster than the wake-up speed of the main control chip.

10. The low-power monitoring camera device according to claim 7, characterized in that: The image sensor is only used for collecting original images, and does not perform encoding or decoding of the original images.

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