ETRI wins 1st place at International intelligent surveillance competition

Korean researchers have won first place at the Performance Evaluation of Tracking and Surveillance (PETS) 2025 Challenge, the world’s largest international competition on intelligent surveillance hosted by IEEE International Conference on the Advanced Video and Signal-Based Surveillance (AVSS), held in Tainan, Taiwan for three days from August 11th.

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) demonstrated its world-class technological prowess by taking first place overall in all scenarios in the tracking track and second place overall in the detection track. This achievement is particularly significant as it was the only Korean research team to participate in the competition.

The PETS 2025 competition is an intelligent surveillance technology assessment competition organized by the University of Reading, UK, and sponsored by the European Multi Authority Border Security Efficiency and Cooperation (EUMARS).

The competition evaluates the ability to recognize and track people, vehicles, and ships based on a variety of sensor types and imaging conditions, including trichromatic (RGB), thermal, short-wave infrared (SWIR), and ultraviolet (UV). It is characterized by presenting challenging conditions such as ▲ resolution mismatch between sensors, ▲ lighting and weather changes, and ▲ complex congestion as scenarios that reflect the actual surveillance environment.

The competition was conducted online. Teams analyzed the provided video dataset and submitted their results, and the organizers automatically evaluated their performance using internationally standardized metrics such as MOTA, IDF1, and HOTA. The final results were then officially presented at the AVSS conference, and the researchers attended the awards ceremony in Tainan, Taiwan, on the 12th.

ETRI took first place in the tracking track, while the joint research team of Jiangnan University in China and the University of Surrey in the UK took second place. In the detection track, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan was ranked first and ETRI was ranked second, demonstrating the highest level of global competitiveness.

ETRI researchers implemented an AI-based system that integrates the entire process of image recognition, detection, and tracking, and maintained high accuracy even in complex environments. In particular, their effectiveness was recognized, demonstrating stable performance even under challenging conditions frequently encountered in real-world surveillance systems, such as ▲ small objects, ▲ resolution variances between sensors, and ▲ frame misses.

This achievement is the result of inheriting and developing smart city intelligent traffic control and video analysis technology know-how accumulated through national R&D projects over the past 30 years and object tracking algorithms developed by senior researchers.

The researchers expect the technology to be applied to various fields such as ▲ urban traffic surveillance, ▲ port security, and ▲ maritime surveillance in the future. It is also attracting attention as a core foundation technology for next-generation smart city surveillance systems because it works stably even in the face of variables such as weather and lighting changes.

ETRI is promoting technology transfer discussions with domestic security and video solution companies, smart city platform operators, and port and maritime surveillance system manufacturers with the goal of commercializing the technology in 2027.

Once commercialized, it is expected to contribute significantly to improving public safety and city operation efficiency, including ▲ early detection of traffic accidents, ▲ optimization of traffic flow, ▲ monitoring of illegal vessels, and ▲ early response to maritime distress and pollution accidents.

Researchers Kim Sangwon, Kim Dongyoung, Lee Kyoungoh, and Kim Kwangju from the ETRI Daegu-Gyeongbuk Research Division participated in this competition and were responsible for technology development and system construction. In particular, master’s degree researcher Kim Dongyoung presented Pixel-Level Fire Origin Localization via Digital Twin Mapping for Wildfire Surveillance Framework at the AVSS plenary session, which attracted great interest from related researchers.

Byun Woo Jin, Vice President of ETRI Daegu-Gyeongbuk Research Division, said, “This achievement demonstrates the excellence of our technology, which operates reliably under a variety of lighting, weather, distance, object size, and obstacle environments. We will continue to strengthen our demonstration-focused research and development to contribute to public safety and create social value.”