Remote weigh station with delayed fraud intervention

• US 10,366,379 B2
• Filed: 01/30/2017
• Issued: 07/30/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NCR Voyix Corporation
• Original Assignee: NCR Corporation (NCR Voyix Corporation)
• Inventors: Crooks, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Hayles, Ashford S
• Application Number:
  US15/419,285
• Publication Number:
  US 20180218350A1
• Time in Patent Office: 911 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01G 19/4144 for controlling weight of goods in commercial establishments, e.g. supermarket, P.O.S. systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 1/121 by printing code marks applying code marks to labels B65C9/46; marking or coding completed packages B65B61/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/1413 1D bar codes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/208 Input by product or record sensing, e.g. weighing or scanner processing
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/0045 with a code reader for reading of an identifying code of the article to be registered, e.g. barcode reader or radio-frequency identity [RFID] reader
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/0063 with means for detecting the geometric dimensions of the article of which the code is read, such as its size or height, for the verification of the registration
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/0072 with means for detecting the weight of the article of which the code is read, for the verification of the registration weighing combined with recording means, e.g. in weighing scale, G01G19/415
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 3/003 Anti-theft control theft alarms G08B13/00

Abstract

Various embodiments herein each include at least one of systems, methods, software, and devices, such as remote weigh stations and ancillary devices thereof enabled to detect fraud possibilities during a product weighing at facilities, such as retail outlets. Some such embodiments include image processing to identify possible fraud.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving product identification input, a weight, and an image of an item present on a scale surface of a non-point of sale weigh station device;

processing at least one of the weight and the image in view of the product identification input according to at least one validation process to obtain a validation result;

when the validation result indicates validation success, outputting data to be printed on a scanable label to be affixed to the item; and

when the validation result indicates validation failure, outputting data to be printed on a scanable label to be affixed to the item to cause a notification to be output upon presentment at a point of sale terminal indicating the validation failure.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the product identification input includes at least one of a price per unit of weight and a product identifier to retrieve product data.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the product data retrievable with the product identifier includes a price per unit of weight and product property data that is utilized by the at least one validation process to perform validation that a product presented matches the received product identification input.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the price per unit of weight is retrieved based on at least a portion of the product identifier from a memory device of the non-point of sale weigh station device.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the product identification input is received as a data item read by a scanning process or device from the image of the item present on the scale.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the validation process includes a set of validation processes that each execute to identify one or more properties of an item presented on the scale surface as captured in the received image.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein at least one validation process is performed with regard to the received image to remove a background of the image leaving only the item presented on the scale surface and to perform at least one additional validation process that outputs the validation result, the validation result including or based at least in part on an indication of whether the presented item is a naturally occurring or man-made item, the at least one additional validation process including at least one of:

a silhouette detection process that processes an image to leave a silhouette of the presented item which is then compared to a reference model of a man-made item and when relatively matched, outputting an indication the presented item is likely man-made;

a glare detection process that evaluates areas within the presented item image portion for distinct occurrences of glare and when a number of glare occurrences larger than a first threshold is greater than a second threshold, outputting an indication the presented item is likely man-made; and

performing a Hough transform on the image of the presented item and performing at least one of a straight-line detection process and a parallel line detection process, wherein;

when the straight line detection identifies a number of straight lines longer than a third threshold greater than a fourth threshold, outputting an indication the presented item is likely man-made; and

when the parallel line detection identifies at least two parallel lines each having at least a minimum length and separated by at least a minimum distance, outputting an indication the presented item is likely man-made.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein:

the received image is one of a plurality of received images, each image captured either from a different angle, zoom, or resolution;

at least one of the silhouette detection, glare detection, straight line detection, and parallel line detection processes are performed on at least two images and the output of the indication that the presented item is likely man-made is output only upon reaching the same conclusion through the respective process upon processing at least two images; and

when an output of only one of the silhouette detection, glare detection, straight line detection, and parallel line detection processes output an indication that the presented item is likely man-made with regard to only a single image, performing further processing with regard to that single image to identify at least one additional feature present therein to confirm that the item present in the image is man-made and outputting an indication that the presented item is likely man-made when the at least one additional feature is present in the image.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein removing the background of the at least one image includes:

down sampling each image, of one or more received images, to a lower resolution;

subtracting a background reference image from a current image, the background reference image subtracted being of an identical resolution and captured by a respective camera that captured the current image; and

performing a pixel-by-pixel comparison between reference image pixels and current image pixels and removing the pixel from the current image when the difference between current image pixel value and the reference image pixel value is lesser than a threshold value, the threshold value variable determined based on the value of one of the current image and reference image pixel values.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the output is output to a label printer.

11. A method comprising:

receiving a product identifier and an image of an item present on a scale surface of a non-point of sale weigh station device;

processing the image in view of the product identifier according to at least one validation process to obtain a validation result; and

when the validation result indicates validation success, outputting data to be printed on a scanable label to be affixed to the item;

otherwise

outputting data to be printed on a scanable label to be affixed to the item to cause a notification to be output upon presentment at a point of sale terminal indicating a validation failure.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the product identifier includes at least one of a price per unit of weight and a product identifier number to retrieve product data.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the product data retrievable with the product identifier includes a price per unit of weight and product property data that is utilized by the at least one validation process to perform validation that a product presented matches the received product identification input.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the product identifier is received as a data item from a product scanner or as read by a scanning process from the image of the item present on the scale.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the validation process includes a set of validation processes that each execute to identify one or more properties of an item presented on the scale surface as captured in the received image.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein at least one validation process is performed with regard to the received image to remove a background of the image leaving only the item presented on the scale surface and to perform at least one additional validation process that outputs the validation result.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the validation result includes or is based at least in part on an indication of whether the presented item is a naturally occurring or man-made item as determined by at least one of silhouette, glare, detection, and straight line detection processes.

18. A non-point of sale self-service terminal comprising:

a product scanner including at least one imaging device;

an input device;

a scale;

a label printer;

a processor; and

a memory device storing instructions executable by the processor to perform data processing activities comprising;

receiving a product identifier, from the input device or the product scanner, and an image, from at least one imaging device of the product scanner, of an item present on the scale;

processing the image in view of the product identifier according to at least one validation process to obtain a validation result; and

when the validation result indicates validation success, printing, with the libel printer, a scanable label to be affixed to the item;

otherwise

printing, with the label printer, a scanable label to be affixed to the item to cause a notification to be output upon presentment at a point of sale terminal indicating a validation failure.

19. The non-point of sale self-service terminal of claim 18, further comprising:

a network interface device; and

wherein the data processing activities, when the validation result does not indicate success, further comprise;

generating a unique identifier and associating a further data item therewith indicating the validation failure;

encoding the unique identifier and the further data item in the data for printing to the scanable label;

transmitting, via the network interface device, the unique identifier and the further data item to a database accessible by point of sale terminals upon a scan of the printed scanable label affixed to the item.

20. The non-point of sale self-service terminal of claim 19, wherein when the validation result indicates validation success, the data processing activities further comprise:

retrieving price per unit of weight data from the memory device based on the product identifier;

calculating a price based on a weight received from the scale multiplied by the retrieved price per unit of weight;

encoding the price in the data for printing on the scanable label to be affixed to the item.