New Software to Detect Dangerous Crowd

A new software to spot fatal crowd crush during festivals and other occasions has been developed by scientists. This new software may help the security personal to disperse people before a stampede strike.

Barbara Krausz at the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems in Sankt Augustin, Germany, developed the system based on one simple observation: when people become trapped in a highly congested area, they sway slowly from side to side in an effort to keep their balance, reports New Scientist.

The software analyzes video footage to analyse movement of pixels between one video frame and another, looking for highly symmetrical pixel motions that indicate swaying.

Any sudden increase in symmetrical movements suggests there may be a congestion problem.

Krausz hopes a future version of her system could run crowd simulations to tell security personnel the best course of action, like opening a gate at a given location.

She will present the work at the Advanced Video and Signal-Based Surveillance conference in Klagenfurt, Austria, next month.

Source: ANI