United Kingdom
The University of Reading is ranked in the top 20 UK higher education institutions and one of the UK’s top research-intensive universities. The Computational Vision Group (CVG), Department of Computer Science, School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences, examines computation issues of perception, intelligence and reasoning in relation to image interpretation and vision. The group has received major grants from the UK EPSRC, EU and Industry and has extensive links with European teams. Current research areas include biometrics, CCTV surveillance of wide area scenes, data fusion, event detection, anomaly and behavioural (threat recognition), and performance evaluation. There is a present focus on increasing the effectiveness of biometrics and imaging for enhanced border control. CVG has extensive experience of security research, through its participation and leadership in a number of nationally and EU security projects. These include UK EPSRC REASON (robust monitoring of people in public places) and EU ISCAPS (integrated surveillance of crowded areas for public security), EU SUBITO (surveillance of unattended baggage and tracking/identification of the owner), EU EFFISEC (efficient integrated security checkpoints) and ARENA (automatic recognition of threats to mobile assets), Co-Friend (airport apron monitoring), EU IMSK (integrated mobile security checkpoints), EU P5 (privacy preserving perimeter protection), EU FastPass, EU IPATCH, etc., all of which address biometric/surveillance tasks. The most relevant projects to BORA are P5 and IPATCH, both of which address multi sensor surveillance. P5 and IPATCH specifically address anomaly detection/behaviour recognition technologies. CVG are currently coordinating the EU PROTECT project on exploration of biometric modalities at the border. CVG has received in excess of L10M in recent years for security related projects. CVG also lead the IEEE International series of IEEE workshops on Performance Evaluation of Tracking and Surveillance (PETS), which is particularly relevant to evaluation and standardization of surveillance technologies. The University of Reading has extensive contacts with industry, public and private safety and security, civil protection, and crisis management authorities, as well as links to a large network of academic research partners.