US Patent 7961953 Image monitoring system

In an image monitoring system, an image data acquisition unit takes in video signals from a camera to acquire image data. An image recognition unit carries out image recognition processing using an inputted image obtained from the image data acquisition unit. A reference image registration unit registers a reference image selected from among the inputted images. An image blur detection unit detects a difference in image blur between the reference image and the inputted image. A similarity computation unit computes a similarity between the reference image and the inputted image. A camera anomaly detection unit detects any anomaly in the camera from the difference in image blur and the similarity.