Body Worn Cameras

TECHNOLOGY

February 23, 2019,Posted by: V

Future Design Considerations.

Body Worn Cameras - Future Designs - MBB

This article was originally written in October 2016 and published elsewhere.

Body worn cameras are soon becoming a norm, mainly for law enforcement as well as for many other emergency and recreational purposes.

Why then is there a picture of beautiful Icelandic horses with the title? Have you ever enjoyed a horseback ride or seen one of those great Westerns? You surely know that horseback riding is anything but smooth. The horse bounces so much that most riders prefer a light or no meal before they venture out in the country! Even a simple trot on a stallion will shake you up quite a bit.

Eventually the invention of four-wheel or all-wheel drive vehicles made travel much smoother than on a horseback. With the wheels evenly turning, the bumpiness was down to a fraction of what was experienced on a horseback.

Moving on to a different field of cinematography or the art of making motion pictures, once again roughness was faced. This was resolved by a tracking shot. Here the camera was mounted on a dolly then placed on rails, very much like a railroad track. Apart from other advantages of a tracking shot, a smooth clean motion picture or film was one of the best end results.

Now, to our subject of body worn cameras used for many serious purposes, with law enforcement being the most important of them all. Of course, the law enforcement personnel cannot wear skates, ride a train or a bike to get a smooth even shot. Hence the resulting video, even if it is highest definition, is bouncy, jarring and with a lot of jerks. The body worn camera [BWC] video is anything but smooth. When a human being walks the body naturally rises up and falls, causing the resulting video to constantly bounce.

There is no easy way to overcome this crucial issue. Adaptive headlights technology can come to the rescue of this serious problem. Using the same technology, the BWC can be mounted on a miniature adaptive mechanism that keeps the camera steady despite the bouncy human stride. The end result will be a very smooth video which can be extremely beneficial, especially for crucial investigations. A simple micro-stabilizer can do wonders for this essential requirement.

Another great technological advancement in BWC would be to use two cameras, much like the Apple’s iPhone X series Plus. With one camera taking wide angle shots and the other long distance zoom and both inputs merged and cleverly blended, will result in a fantastic video. The resulting video will have a sizable wide angle as well as sharp long-distance views. Again, this can be a boon for investigations.

Needless to say, the two advanced technologies mentioned above, can be tremendously beneficial for many other objectives too. The uses can be limitless.

One may think that this is not easy, too expensive or the technology does not exist. In the past few decades the technological growth has been exponential. It is only a matter of time, relatively a very short, that someone will come up with cheaper, accessible solutions to these highly needed issues. The first few ones will cash it in. As they say, you snooze, you lose.