Unmanned Surveillance

Posted by | No Tags | Cameras · Equipment | Comments Off on Unmanned Surveillance

Every surveillance investigator wants to utilize unmanned surveillance. I have tested out various methods and will be describing my findings and opinions on all of them. This is not a how to article, this article is written so you can learn from my experiences rather than spending valuable time and money making the same mistakes I already did.

Before I go into details of various methods I tested, I will describe the essentials of unmanned surveillance. There are two things you must always consider: battery power & size. Usually you want your unmanned setup to be as small as possible, but the smaller you get the less battery power you have.

hunter cam

Hunting cameras/ motion sensor unmanned surveillance.

This type of camera is what I started out with when researching unmanned surveillance. I started with cheap $150 units and moved up to Bushnell HD units with zoom at a cost of over $350. Some units were better than others. What you need to look for in these units is night-shot ability with blacked out IR lights.

These cameras work on motion sensors that range from 10 feet – 35 feet. After the camera is activated by motion it can take pictures or video ranging from 15 seconds – 10 minutes of rolling video after motion detection depending on the setting you choose. Depending on the amount of motion that the camera observes, it can last from 10 days to several months.

The memory on these cameras depends on the SD card you use. From my field tests, the batteries will die before a 32GB SD card will run out of memory.

There is a very big downside with these cameras… and this downside was similar with the cheap $150 cameras and the expensive $350 cameras. The camera will sense motion and activate video for the period of time you set it to. After it stops recording, it can take from 10 seconds to 1 minute to reactive its motion sensors. The time it takes to reactive is always random on each camera I tested. This is a big no-no for me because the activity you were searching for may have happened in that 1 minute. And once you review the video, you will not be able to say with 100% certainty that your subject did not pass by! So due to this issue, I don’t utilize these cameras anymore.

black box

The Black Box

I can honestly say I am not a fan of Brickhouse Security. But they do make a product that is exceptional for unmanned surveillance. The Black Box Micro HD. This should be in every investigators bag of tricks. It is only $99.95 and is the smallest unmanned camera that I have found to date at 3” x 1.6” x .7” This little guy can take great quality video (for its size) and takes great night video. They advertise 10 hours of recording time however, if you degrade the video quality slightly, I have been able to get 15 hours out of it.

This camera also has an awesome feature that lets you schedule recording by day and time, so you can get several days of video out of it if you are only looking for certain times. And this camera has a motion sensor that work fairly well too. The motion sensors range is only several feet, so this will work more in a confined environment. The motion sensor takes about 1 second to activate which is much faster than any other unmanned camera I tested. With the motion sensor function I have had this camera last for over 7 days.

And lastly, due to its small size, this camera is easy to conceal in various objects. On one case we took out the internals of a fire detector and hid this camera inside the detector. We then mounted this camera in a building hallway to watch an apartment door to determine residency.

I have not used the Black Box Pro as I don’t like the location of the lens.

time lapse

Time Lapse Cameras

Time lapse cameras take video or photos on set intervals. My favorite unmanned surveillance is this type of camera. And the best and only time-lapse camera I can recommend is the Brinno TLC200. They are priced from $150 – $250 depending on model and video quality. But they all function the same. They operate on 4 AA batteries and can last for days or weeks depending on the interval you set. I usually use this camera one on interval setting: 1 frame per second. This guarantees that I will not miss any activity and the video looks fairly decent as if it’s almost rolling. At this setting I can get 5 days of video out of this little camera. In certain settings (like a long driveway) I can set this to take 1 frame every 2 seconds and get 8-9 days of video.

The video quality on these cameras are awesome and so is the nightshot compared to most cameras. The size is also great at 2” x 3.5” x 7” and the rotating lens is what really makes this a great tool as I can set it any way I want to and just rotate the lens. The memory on these cameras depends on the SD card you use. From my field tests, the batteries will die before a 32GB SD card will run out of memory.

I bought an electrical box and rigged it so the camera sits inside. When mounted to a light pole it looks like it belongs there. However most of the time I just put it in bushes. I walk by the area, rip out a few leaves from the bush I want to put the camera in, tape the leaves to the camera, and put the camera in the bush leaving only the lens exposed. I find that to be the best camouflage. I have had the camera setup in bushes and endure 5 days of sprinklers without any issues yet.

I use this camera often when working consecutive surveillance by placing the camera when I leave for the evening and reviewing the video when I get back to the next morning to see if my subject is active when I am gone.

unmanned car

Unmanned Surveillance Vehicle

Building an unmanned surveillance vehicle is fairly cheap and easy. Total cost involved comes in at under $1000.

– 12V DVR system – $300.00 (Google “mobile DVR”)

– 2 x Panasonic V100K – $350.00

– 2 x 12V Panasonic chargers – $40

– 2 marine batteries – $200

– Cables to wire batteries together – $10

Setting up an unmanned vehicle is fairly simple with the parts listed above. The reason your DVR and camera chargers should be 12V rather than using an inverter is simple: battery power. An inverter eats much more juice then connecting directly to the batteries. The reason I chose Panasonic cameras is because of auto focus adjustments and because of auto nightshot adjustments.

On the floor of your backseat you need to setup the batteries (linked together) and the DVR system. Then just simply put the cameras wherever you need to and plug in the RCA cables and your good to go!

The only thing you must consider is covertness for your cameras. If you don’t have tinted windows you will need to get creative. I like to put a camera in the headrest when I can (yes, I cut my headrest and stuff it in!). If you have tinted windows, what I did is drill an L shape metal bracket into the door under the window and mount my camera with duct tape on the bracket with the camera lens basically touching the window. This will prevent the camera from focusing on the window. I put a cut up black bed sheet on the camera and on all my electronics in the car so no one can see anything if they peak inside. The tint prevents the camera from being seen as with my bed sheet over the camera everything just looks black inside.

There are more technical things you can do like drill out the keyhole and replace them with a little camera and so on… but I prefer my method as that allows me to angle the camera how I want to and zoom in where I want to.

Wireless Remote Surveillance

There are still many issues with WIFI surveillance. For one, WIFI eats a lot of battery power. Two, streaming video on cellular Wi-Fi gets very expensive, very fast. Three, you will experience issues with your hotspot going offline or kicking your system offline and you will have to return to your unmanned camera to fix the issue.

But more importantly, it gets old fast. Your client will get tired of looking at no activity for long periods of time fast. You will get tired of looking at no activity fast! It’s easier and much more cost effective to simply retrieve the cameras after a certain number of days and review the video in a few hours.

However, if you are set on Wi-Fi use, I will give you a few suggestions:

The Panasonic TM720 offers Wi-Fi. You can setup your TM720 connected to a car battery and hook it up to your hotspot (also connected to the car battery). You can then watch live video at home.

Many DVR systems offer WIFI so you can do the same, just connect to your hotspot and you’re good to go.

Lastly, I recently read a post by a PI named John Ecklund that has had good results by buying the products from the links below and hooking that up to his hotspot. I have no need to test this system out but it seems like it can easily be built to be fairly small and utilized without an unmanned vehicle:

http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?SKU=56W4050&CMP=KNC-GPLA&mckv=|pcrid|20706799101|plid|

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/831-3058&scode=GS401&CAWELAID=1573440219?catargetid=1545764029&cagpspn=pla&gclid=CLfl6aeAxrgCFevm7AodDW0AiA

http://www.vesalia.de/e_rpicamera%5B8246%5D.htm?slc=us&gclid=COnLm9b_xbgCFchDMgodfDoAKw

VLC

Reviewing Video

Reviewing 20-50 hours of video can be very time-consuming. The best method I have found to review videos (on Windows) is by using VLC media player. In VLC media player you can watch video in any speed you wish. With my eyes I can watch video in 4.5X speed as I don’t blink much. You can use the [ ] buttons to speed up or slow down video and space to stop video. Once you start reviewing 20 hours of video you will understand why these simple keys will save you hours of time.

$$$$$$

Billing is something I don’t like to discuss in my articles but I will briefly touch on the subject this one time.

When using unmanned cameras, keep in mind that your time is not only placing and retrieving the cameras but also the time it takes to review the video and write the report on the video. In my experience 5 days of 1 second time-lapse video takes 4-5 hours to review. Lastly, I would factor camera loss into the equation. I used unmanned cameras 10+ days a month for the past 1.5 years. I have lost 2 cameras (most likely picked up by gardeners).

When billing for unmanned surveillance vehicles keep video review time in mind for each camera you use in the vehicle. Also keep in mind that it usually takes two people to drop off and pick up the vehicle. But most importantly, keep in mind that the parking space you need may not be available when trying to place your vehicle and you may have to make multiple attempts. On one case I spent 8 trips until I was finally able to get the desired parking space.

Lastly, before you all ask why I didn’t include it here, I built a system to view cameras wirelessly using radio frequencies at ranges of about 1-2 miles depending on interference. I will be writing an article on that setup in a few weeks after some more testing.


No Comments

Comments are closed.