The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has developed a new low-cost video surveillance system to monitor South Africa’s ports.

CSIR Built Environment manager of coastal engineering and port infrastructure Dave Phelp, says the digital imaging system was developed over the last two years by the CSIR in cooperation with a private company from Durban who provides vision systems for environmental monitoring, Enviro Vision Solutions. “It is based on a video monitoring system developed to provide early warning for forest and shack fires.”

The surveillance system provides additional visual information and early warning to harbour masters, vessel traffic controllers and port operators.

“This system provides recorded images, which are analysed online to assist in safe port operations. It can be linked to other online systems, such as wave measurements, also provided by the CSIR, at the ports and through its network to Stellenbosch. Preset views of each berth are scanned automatically and analysed for excessive vessel motion. A similar system is used to monitor ship motion in physical models,” comments Phelp.

The CSIR says that, in the absence of prominent port control buildings, cameras can be placed strategically to cover the entire port, make all views easily accessible and recordable, and raise the alarm on potentially dangerous or unsafe conditions.

The cost-effective design of the auxiliary vision system is based on a low-cost pan/tilt/zoom video camera. “The hardware costs are similar to other security closed-circuit television systems, but specialised software has been developed to automatically analyse the captured images, such as ship motions,” says Phelp.

A demonstration system, called Harbour Watch, is already being conducted at the Port of Cape Town. “This was started at the beginning of 2007 and is linked through microwave to the CSIR in Stellen-bosch for further software and application development,” says Phelp.

He adds that images can also be saved to a local network, where people who may need the information can view them. The CSIR has also modified software developed for tracking ship motion in small-scale models to track prototype ship motions.

The system can be used to alert port operators of dangerous levels of ship motion during storm conditions, using time-series digital image sequence data technology. It also helps to prevent damage to mooring lines and vessels, by using robust, multiple target real-time video tracking algorithm technology.

Further, Phelp says the video camera is accurately mounted and images are geo-referenced so that each pixel can be linked to a position on the port layout map or digital terrain map.

The developers say this is useful for identifying such things as bollard numbers and exact positioning of incidents that were recorded. When the harbour master does not move the camera by using a joy stick, the system goes into automatic mode, where it scans a number of presets.

Up to 100 presets, such as individual berths, can be preprogrammed into the system. These are displayed on the liquid crystal display, which is visible in the port control building.

The system automatically saves four images, along with the time and date they were taken, before moving on to the next preset, repeating this cycle every five to ten minutes.

These images are saved in buffers for up to five days, which can be reviewed as a time history for a berth, or be saved, before being overwritten. This also has useful applications for port security, and can be linked to existing port security systems.

In addition, the system can be used for vessel tracking. The developers say vessel manoeuvres in and approaching the port can be tracked for later analysis, including nonautomatic identification system vessels, thereby aiding or replacing conventional vessel tracking service (VTS) systems.

Alarms can also be triggered if a vessel moves out of a designated channel. By clicking on the VTS screen, the camera can automatically zoom into the cursor position to give a visual image of the vessel being identified.

Also, the arrival and departure of vessels, which are captured on the latest preset, can be saved for automatic access by cellphone modem. The developers say that with the name of the vessel or berth identifying the image, a shipping agent could type in an access code to receive an updated short message service image to provide the latest information on the vessel’s movements. Passwords could be used to restrict access if necessary.

Phelp concludes, “We aim to be able to develop a system that meets the requirements of the port operators, and hope, in future, to expand the network to other ports and to allow the technology to be accessible to port operators, engineers and managers.”