Home Surveillance with Human Detection

Simple home surveillance system using Raspberry Pi 3, Raspberry Pi Zero W and OpenCV.

Hardware Requirements

• Raspberry Pi 3 Model B
• Raspberry Pi Zero W
• Raspberry Pi Camera
• PIR sensor (HC-SR501)
• Two microSD (I recommend at least 8gb per card)

Basic System Overview

Getting Started

Setup the Rasperries (same procedure for Pi3 and PiZero)

First of all you need to download the raspbian image.

Then you need to make a bootable microSD

Now since the PiZero do not have a eth port, you should manually configure the remote access over WiFi.In another computer running Linux (or PC with Live CD) you could edit the following file

/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

adding the following

country="your country, es. IT"
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
    ssid="SSID"
    psk="password"
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

To simplify the remote access, i recomand to set a static ip. You need to know your router ip address. Open terminal and type

ip route | grep default | awk '{print $3}'

then edit the following file

/etc/dhcpcd.conf

adding the following

#eth not necessary for PiZero
interface eth0
static ip_address = first 3 part of previous command result then add a number between 1 and 255
static routers = previous command result
static domain_name_servers = 8.8.8.8

interface wlan0
static ip_address =
static routers =
static domain_name_servers = 8.8.8.8

An example of what should look like your dhcpcd.conf file

interface eth0
static ip_address=192.168.1.222
static routers=192.168.1.1
static domain_name_servers=8.8.8.8

interface wlan0
static ip_address=192.168.1.222
static routers=192.168.1.1
static domain_name_servers=8.8.8.8

NOTE: Use different ip address for Pi3 and PiZero

Finally we need to enable ssh. Simply add an empty file on the /boot partition named “ssh”.

Put the SD card on your Pi and if everything works as I hope it would, you'll be able to connect to the Pi on your WiFi network typing

ssh pi@"the_ip_you_set_in_dhcpcd.conf"

The default password is "raspberry", i recommend you to change it with passwd command.

Install Camera on PiZero

After connected to PiZero you need to enable the camera. This is done in raspi-config.

sudo raspi-config

then select "Interfacing Options " and finally enable the camera. Let the system reboot once the camera is enabled. To test that the camera is working:

vcgencmd get_camera

Prerequisites