SECRET VIDEO
RECORDER
Abstract—In view of the shortcoming that the traditional video
monitoring device is inconvenient to move, in this paper, we take
the tracked intelligent System as the research object and
design a mobile video monitoring system based on Android. The
system collects the video information of the environment around
the intelligent System through the camera and then transmits the
video information to the Android client. The Android client
obtains the video information through the Hyper Text Transport
Protocol (HTTP) and Uniform Resource Locator (URL) from the
WiFi module. Then, the Android client analyses and displays the
video in the SurfaceView. During the moving process of
intelligent System, users can control its basic movement
according to the surrounding environment. Thus a mobile video
monitoring system is implemented. Experimental results
demonstrate that the system operates normally, and its
performance meets our design requirement.
Keywords—Intelligent System; Mobile; Video Monitoring;
Android
I. INTRODUCTION
With the rapid development of the science and
technology, the Android mobile phone is no longer a
single communication device. More and more people
expect to use the mobile phone to help manage their
daily affairs. In the modern society, video monitoring
equipment is becoming more and more popular, making
people's life more convenient and safe[1]. However, the
traditional video monitoring device is limited by the
shooting range of camera. It can only monitor a particular
place and is inconvenient to move. In the light of the
problems above, we make use of the intelligent System to
design a mobile video monitoring system based on
Android. In addition, we develop an Android application in
the eclipse software platform in accordance with the
specific function of this system. The video information of
the environment around the intelligent System collected by
the camera is transmitted to the Android client in real time.
Users can adjust the direction and path of intelligent
System in real time on the basis of the surroundings. The
system overcomes the disadvantages of traditional video
monitoring equipment and improves the flexibility and
portability of control. The system can be used to monitor
some unknown and dangerous environment instead of
human. It can also be combined with the smart home and
Internet of things, making people's life more comfortable,
convenient and intelligent, is of wide application prospects.
II. SYSTEM DESIGN
As shown in Figure 1, the overall system consists of
the intelligent System and the Android client. The
intelligent System mainly makes up of the camera
module, the WiFi module, the PHONE Processor, the
L298N Rotation drive module, and so on. The camera
module is used to collect the environment information
around the intelligent System. The WiFi module is used
to forward the control instruction sent by the Android
client to the PHONE Processor and transmit the video
information collected by the camera module to the Android
client. The PHONE Processor bases on the ARM Cortex-
M3 core, is of good performance and low power
consumption[2]. The Rotation drive module is used to drive
the Rotation and control the movement of intelligent
System. The Android client is used to issue the control
instruction of intelligent System and display the video.
The hardware platform of this system is presented in Figure
2.
Camera
Camera Angle
Video Rotation
Angle
Control Information
Command
Android WiFi
STM32
Client Module
Video
Movement
Information
Instruction Of
Intelligent Device
Drive
Intelligent Device
Fig. 1. The block diagram of system
III. VIDEO MONITORING
The part of video monitoring mainly consists of video
collection module, video transmission module, video receiving
module, video analysis and display module, video snapshot
module and Multi-angle video monitoring module.
A. Video Collection Module
This module makes use of an USB camera with pan-tilt.
Its standard resolution is 640*480P and its pixel is 300,000.
The USB camera connects with the WiFi module through the
USB. The pan-tilt of the camera is composed of two steering
engines, which are used to control the rotation angle of camera
in the horizontal and vertical directions. The video resource
contains large amounts of data and transmit video resource
under a limited network bandwidth may lead to the block and
delay of network. It is difficult to meet the requirement of
real-time. Therefore, it’s necessary to compress the size of
image and ensure its quality as much as possible. In this
system, we compress the RGB image collected by the camera
into the YCrCB image and deliver the video stream whose
form is MJPEG to the WiFi module.
B. Video Transmission Module
This module uses the WiFi module whose master chip is
MTK7620N. This WiFi module supports the 802.11b/g/n
wireless standard and TCP/IP network protocol stack. The
maximum connection rate of it can reach 300Mbps. Before
using the WiFi module, brush the Openwrt operating system
for it. OpenWrt is a highly modular and automated embedded
system. It’s widely used in the industrial control, smart home,
wireless router, intelligent robot and other places. Users can
develop various functions through its powerful network
components[3]. In this system, according to the specific
functional requirements, install the USB camera driver and
MJPEG-stream video streaming server software in the
OpenWrt system. The camera driver is used to turn on the
camera and initialize the related parameters, so that the camera
can collect video information normally. The input component
of MJPEG-stream is used to call the camera driver and get the
video stream whose form is MJPEG. The output component of
MJPEG-stream is used to deliver the video stream to the
Android client through the HTTP and URL[4]. The multi-
thread programming is used to respond to multiple clients’
requests at the same time.
C. Video Receiving Module
This module is mainly implemented through the HTTP and
URL.
HTTP is a hypertext transfer protocol, one of the most
widely used Internet protocols[5]. It’s a standard for the
client’s requests and server’s responses. HTTP is an
application layer protocol and it uses the connection-oriented
TCP as the transport layer protocol. TCP provides a reliable
delivery service. Therefore, the video data transmitted through
the TCP connection doesn’t have error, loss and repetition.
Besides, they can arrive in sequence. HTTP doesn’t need to
consider how the video data is transmitted again after being
discarded during the process of transmission.
URL, the uniform resource locator, represents the
specific address of a resource on the Internet[6]. We can get
a resource through its concrete address. The URL used in
this article is as follows.
In this URL, http shows that using the HTTP protocol
to obtain video resource on the network. 192.168.1.1
represents the Internet Protocol address of server, namely
the WiFi module. Sometimes it can be replaced by the
domain name. 8080 declares that the server uses the port
8080 to transmit video resource. ?Action = stream shows
the specific name of video resource.
The main process of receiving the video is as follows.
First of all, the Android client creates an URL object
as mentioned above, and then create a HttpURLConnection
object by the URL object. Secondly, the Android client
establishs a TCP connection to the server and request the
resource identified by the URL by means of GET. Finally,
the server sends the resource to the Android client and the
Android client gets the InputStream returned from the server.
D. Video Analysis And Display Module
This module requires the Paint, the Canvas, the
Bitmap and the BitmapFactory class. We can analyse and
create the Bitmap object from different data sources
through the BitmapFactory class.
SurfaceView is a very important drawing container and
it can obtain the image data from the memory or other
hardware interfaces directly[7]. Except that, SurfaceView
can call another thread to complete the drawing operation
without interfering with the main thread, which avoids the
main thread blocked and the application becomes
unresponsive on accout- of updating the frame directly in
the main thread. Therefore, the response speed of the
application is improved.
The Android client makes use of the decodeStream
function of the BitmapFactory class to analyse and create the
Bitmap object from the InputStream returned from the server.
Then, scale the Bitmap object to a new Bitmap object with the
same width and height as the Surfaceview. The concrete
process of displaying the new Bitmap object is as follows.
Firstly, inherit the SurfaceView class and implement the
Callback interface of it. Secondly, get the SurfaceHolder
object by calling the getHolder function. Then, acquire the
Canvas object and lock it to ensure that the Canvas won’t be
changed in the process of drawing. Finally, use the Paint to
draw the Bitmap object on the Canvas. After each Bitmap
object draw completely, unlock the Canvas and submit the
change of the Canvas’s content to the system, then the Bitmap
object will be displayed in the SurfaceView.
The Android client obtains the Bitmap object recurrently
through a while loop. Consequently, we can get a continuous
and dynamic video. To make the Android client has a better
experience for users, we calculate the number of the Bitmap
objects received by the Android client per second and show it
in the form of TextView.
E. Video Snapshot Module
When the Android client is in the state of video monitoring,
if the current frame contains some information that users are
interested in, users are able to store the current frame in the
specified path with specified name and format by clicking on
the snapshot button in the video monitoring interface. This is
the so-called snapshot. The image saved can be viewed
through the Gallery and ImageSwicher components in the
interface of photo album, as shown in Figure 3. The Gallery is
used to display an image list in the horizontal direction, and
the image list can be moved to the left or right via sliding. The
ImageSwitcher is one widget used to optimize the image's
display effect, and the image selected in the Gallery can be
displayed in more details in the ImageSwitcher[8].
Fig. 3. The interface of photo album
F. Multi-angle Video Monitoring Module
The Multi-angle video monitoring can be achieved by
adjusting the rotation angle of steering engine. The Socket
communication principle and Seekbar are used to control the
rotation angle of steering engine. The length that being dragged
of the Seekbar is proportional to the rotation angle of steering
engine, and the total length corresponds to the maximum
rotation angle[9]. When we stop dragging the Seekbar, the
Android client will convert the angle corresponding to the
current length dragged into hexadecimal number, and send the
control command to the PHONE Processor according to the
format of communication protocol shown in Table I. After
receiving the command, the PHONE Processor parses the
command and then controls the rotation angle of steering
engine by the pulse width modulation. After the steering
engine turning the corresponding angle normally, the
intelligent System will send a feedback message to the
Android client, for example, turn left with 50 degrees. The
feedback message is displayed in the form of Toast. Otherwise,
the intelligent System will report the exceptional condition to
the Android client.
IV. CONTROL OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEM
The Android client adopts the Socket communication
based on the TCP to control the basic motion state of
intelligent System. The Internet Protocol Address of the
WiFi module used in this system is 192.168.1.1. The port
used to control the motion of intelligent System is 2001.
Establish a WiFi communication between the intelligent
System and the Android phone by the WiFi module's
Internet Protocol Address and port 2001. The format of
the communication protocol used to control the the
intelligent System’s motion is shown in Table II. Clicking
on the control button in the client interface will trigger the
corresponding control instruction. The Android client
transmits the control instruction to the WiFi module by
the WIFI communication, and the WiFi module will
transmit the control instruction to the PHONE Processor
through the serial port. After receiving the control
instruction successfully, the PHONE Processor will parse it
and drive the L298N driving chip of Rotation in order to
adjust the basic motion state of intelligent System, such as
forward, backward, turn left and turn right, and so on. After
performing the corresponding action of the control button
normally, the intelligent System will send a feedback
message to the Android client, for example, forward
successfully. The feedback message is displayed in the
form of Toast. Otherwise, the intelligent System will report
the abnormal condition to the Android client.
Build the hardware platform of the system and turn on the
intelligent System’s power, then the WiFi module will be
initialized. When the blue indicator light on the WiFi module
changing from blinking to the bright state, the WiFi module
has been initialized successfully. Use the Android smart phone
to connect the wireless signal emitted by the WiFi module,
and to open the Android application developed by the eclipse
software. Experimental results show that the system runs
normally. The Android client is able to control the basic
motion of intelligent System and the rotation angle of camera.
In the client interface, we can obtain the video resource which
is downloaded and played in real time. The video is clear and
fluent, without obvious buffering phenomenon. 11-13 frames
can be transmitted per second. The status of video monitoring
in this case is shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5. After
connecting the WiFi module to the router's LAN and use the
Android smart phone to connect the wireless signal emitted by
the router, the reliability of this system is improved and the
performance is more optimized. 12-15 frames can be
transmitted per second. The status of video monitoring in this
case is shown in Figure 6 and Figure 7.
Fig. 4. The status of video monitoring in case 1

TABLE II. THE COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL USED TO CONTROL

THE MOTION OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEM

Motion state Start Data.1 Data.2 End

Stop FF 00 00 FF
Forwor FF 01 00 FF
dd
Back
backward FF 02 00 FF
Turn left FF 03 00 FF
TTurn right FF 04 00 FF

V. IMPROVEMENT OF SYSTEM FUNCTION

The mobile video monitoring system based on
Android can be realized via combining the Multi-angle Fig. 5. The status of video monitoring in case 1
video monitoring and intelligent System’s movement.
However, the coverage of wireless signal emitted by the
WiFi module is small, and sometimes the status of network
connection may be unstable, which will influence the
system’s function in a degree. In order to solve this
problem, login the management interface of the WiFi
module and connect the WiFi module to the router's LAN.
Then, the WiFi module will switch from the AP mode to
the Client mode and doesn’t emit the wireless signal
anymore[10]. In this system, the Internet Protocol address
of the WiFi module assigned by the router is
192.168.123.40. As a consequence, when we try to control
the motion of intelligent System, the Internet Protocol
address used to establish the Socket communication
Fig. 6. The status of video monitoring in case 2
should be modified to 192.168.123.40. Similarly, the URL
used to obtain the video should be changed to the following
form.
VI. TEST OF SYSTEM FUNCTION
 Fig. 7. The status of video monitoring in case
2

VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we use the embedded system, streaming
media, serial communication, Socket communication,
Android network programming and other technologies to
realize a mobile video monitoring system with low cost and
low power consumption. Furthermore, we develop an
Android application in the eclipse software platform in
accordance with the function of this system. Experimental
results show that the system has good stability, reliability
and practicability. Its performance meets our design
requirement. This system overcomes the shortcomings of
the traditional video monitoring device. In addition, the
control of the intelligent System’s basic motion state
 becomes more flexible and portable[11]. With the
development of automation technology and the popularity of
the Android smart phone, we can combine it with the smart
SECRET VIDEO home and Internet of things so that people's life will be more
comfortable and convenient. Besides, we can use it in the
RECORDER fields of family security,
fields.
II. SYSTEMintelligent
DESIGNlife and some other
As shown in Figure 1, the overall system consists of
the intelligent System and the Android client. The
Abstract—In view of the shortcoming that the traditional video
intelligent System mainly makes up of the camera
monitoring device is inconvenient to move, in this paper, we take
module, the WiFi REFERENCES module, the PHONE Processor, the
the tracked intelligent System as the research object and
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Angle
I. INTRODUCTION
Video Rotation
With the rapid development of the science and Control Information Angle
Command
technology, the Android mobile phone is no longer a Android WiFi
STM32
single communication device. More and more people Client Module
expect to use the mobile phone to help manage their Video
Movement
Information
daily affairs. In the modern society, video monitoring Instruction Of
Intelligent Device
equipment is becoming more and more popular, making
people's life more convenient and safe[1]. However, the Drive

traditional video monitoring device is limited by the

shooting range of camera. It can only monitor a particular
place and is inconvenient to move. In the light of the
problems above, we make use of the intelligent System to
design a mobile video monitoring system based on
Android. In addition, we develop an Android application in
the eclipse software platform in accordance with the
specific function of this system. The video information of
the environment around the intelligent System collected by
the camera is transmitted to the Android client in real time.
Users can adjust the direction and path of intelligent
System in real time on the basis of the surroundings. The
system overcomes the disadvantages of traditional video
monitoring equipment and improves the flexibility and
portability of control. The system can be used to monitor
some unknown and dangerous environment instead of
human. It can also be combined with the smart home and
Internet of things, making people's life more comfortable,
convenient and intelligent, is of wide application prospects.
Intelligent Device
Fig. 1. The block diagram of system
III. VIDEO MONITORING
The part of video monitoring mainly consists of video
collection module, video transmission module, video receiving
module, video analysis and display module, video snapshot
module and Multi-angle video monitoring module.
A. Video Collection Module
This module makes use of an USB camera with pan-tilt.
Its standard resolution is 640*480P and its pixel is 300,000.
The USB camera connects with the WiFi module through the
USB. The pan-tilt of the camera is composed of two steering
engines, which are used to control the rotation angle of camera
in the horizontal and vertical directions. The video resource
contains large amounts of data and transmit video resource
under a limited network bandwidth may lead to the block and
delay of network. It is difficult to meet the requirement of
real-time. Therefore, it’s necessary to compress the size of
image and ensure its quality as much as possible. In this
system, we compress the RGB image collected by the camera
into the YCrCB image and deliver the video stream whose
form is MJPEG to the WiFi module.

B. Video Transmission Module

This module uses the WiFi module whose master chip is
MTK7620N. This WiFi module supports the 802.11b/g/n
wireless standard and TCP/IP network protocol stack. The
maximum connection rate of it can reach 300Mbps. Before
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