Sky monitoring has many applications but also many challenges to be addressed before it can be realized. Some of the challenges are cost, energy consumption and complex deployment. One way to address these challenges is to compose a camera dome by grouping cameras that monitor a half sphere of the sky. In this paper, we present a model for design exploration that investigates how characteristics of camera chips and objective lenses affect the overall cost of a node of a camera dome. The investigation showed that by accepting more cameras in a single node can result in a reduced total cost of the system. This concludes that by using suitable design and camera placement technique, a cost-effective solution can be proposed for massive open-area i.e. sky monitoring.
Conference Paper