In this paper we propose an architecture for a surveillance application aimed to the automatic recognition of complex events. The main novelty of this work consists in the desgin of an effective and viable solution for the actual implementation of a complex automatic surveillance system that explicitly separates signal processing routines from the reasoning modules. We describe our ongoing efforts in the representation of the domain knowledge and in the development of a framework that allows the operator to easily check and update the system's knowledge base. The taxonomical knowledge is expressed through ontologies (OWL), the event classfication logic is expressed using a dedicated rule language (Jess), and the implementation is based on the java language.
