Crowd Behavior Analysis: A Review where Physics meets Biology

TL;DR

This paper reviews how physics and biology-inspired methods are advancing crowd behavior analysis in computer vision, aiming to improve understanding and prevention of crowd disasters.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art crowd analysis methods inspired by physics and biology, highlighting common insights and contradictions.

Findings

Physics and biology approaches share common insights.

Emergent behavior understanding is crucial for crowd safety.

Biologically inspired methods are increasingly effective.

Abstract

Although the traits emerged in a mass gathering are often non-deliberative, the act of mass impulse may lead to irre- vocable crowd disasters. The two-fold increase of carnage in crowd since the past two decades has spurred significant advances in the field of computer vision, towards effective and proactive crowd surveillance. Computer vision stud- ies related to crowd are observed to resonate with the understanding of the emergent behavior in physics (complex systems) and biology (animal swarm). These studies, which are inspired by biology and physics, share surprisingly common insights, and interesting contradictions. However, this aspect of discussion has not been fully explored. Therefore, this survey provides the readers with a review of the state-of-the-art methods in crowd behavior analysis from the physics and biologically inspired perspectives. We provide insights and comprehensive discussions for a broader understanding of the underlying prospect of blending physics and biology studies in computer vision.