Occupancy interaction detection

• US 10,482,480 B2
• Filed: 12/14/2015
• Issued: 11/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 02/19/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Building Robotics, Inc. (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Enlighted, Inc. (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Purandare, Neeraj, Mohan, Tanuj, Ericsson, Bo E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Cuong B
• Assistant Examiner(s): Park, Samuel
• Application Number:
  US14/968,780
• Publication Number:
  US 20160098024A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,436 Days
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 11/30 for purposes related to the operation of the system, e.g. for safety or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 2120/10 Occupancy
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 2120/14 Activity of occupants
• CPC Class Codes: G01P 13/00 Indicating or recording presence, absence, or direction, of movement electric switches H01H; counting moving objects G06M7/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data

Abstract

Apparatuses, methods, apparatuses and systems for occupancy interaction detection, are disclosed. One occupancy interaction detection system includes a plurality of sensors located within an area, the plurality of sensors operative to sense at least motion of a first occupant and a second occupant of the area, and communication links between each of the sensors and a controller. For an embodiment, the controller operative to receive sense data from the plurality of sensors, track locations of the first occupant of the area based on the sensed motion of the first occupant, track locations of the second occupant of the area based on the sensed motion of the second occupant, and identify an interaction between the first occupant and the second occupant, comprising detecting the first occupant to be within a threshold distance of the second occupant.

Claims

1. An occupancy interaction detection system, comprising:

a plurality of sensors located within an area, the plurality of sensors operative to;

sense at least motion of an associate and a customer of the area; and

receive wireless beacons from a wireless device of at least one of the associate or the customer, wherein the wireless beacons include identifier information of the associate or the customer;

a controller communicating with each sensor of the plurality of sensors, the controller operative to;

receive sense data from the plurality of sensors;

receive wireless beacon information from the plurality of sensors;

identify the at least one of the associate or the customer among a plurality of occupants within the area based on the identifier information;

track locations of the associate of the area based on the sensed motion of the associate;

track locations of the customer of the area based on the sensed motion of the customer;

identify an interaction between the associate and the customer, comprising detecting the associate to be within a threshold distance of the customer based on the tracked locations of the associate and the tracked locations of the customer; and

determine that the interaction between the associate and the customer is a customer engagement based on a time duration of the interaction; and

an environmental controller, wherein the environmental controller operates to control an environmental condition of the area, wherein the controller further operates to control the environmental controller to control the environmental condition of the area based at least in part on the tracked locations of at least one of the associate or the customer.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein identifying the interaction further comprises detecting the associate to be within the threshold distance of the customer for greater than a threshold period of time, wherein the threshold period of time is selectable.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sensors are further operative to sense at least motion of a third occupant of the area;

and

wherein the controller is further operative to track locations of the third occupant of the area;

identify an interaction between the associate, the customer, and the third occupant, comprising detecting the associate, the customer and the third occupant to be within a threshold distance of each other.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising tracking motion of at least the associate or the customer after identifying the interaction.

5. The system of claim 4, further comprising identifying an influence of the identified interaction on at least the associate of the customer based on the tracking of motion of at least the associate or the customer after identifying the interaction.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the threshold distance is adaptively selected.

7. The system of claim 1, the controller is further operative to generate a profile of at least one of the associate or the customer based on the identifier information of the at least one of the associate or the customer, and tracked motion of the at least one of the associate or the customer.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further operative to track motion of the customer, and determine whether the customer completes a transaction, wherein the transaction is identified by determining that the customer engages with a cashier.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the controller is further operative to:

detect multiple different customer engagements including the detected customer engagement;

detect whether or not each of multiple customers of the different customer engagements completes a transaction;

generate engagement metrics that measure how effective the multiple different customer engagements were in completion of a transaction.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further operative to:

identify a first group of sensors that includes a plurality of neighboring sensors sensing motion greater than a motion threshold during a first time interval;

identify a second group of sensors that includes a plurality of neighboring sensors sensing motion greater than a motion threshold during a second time interval;

the track motion, comprising linking the second group to the first group based on the plurality of sensors of the first group and the plurality of sensors of the second group.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein tracked motion includes at least one of the plurality of neighboring sensors within the second group being different than a plurality of sensors of the first group, and at least one of the plurality of neighboring sensors within the second group being common with at least one of the plurality of sensors of the first group.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further operative to:

group the sense data according to identified groupings of the plurality of sensors;

sense motion of the occupants within one or more of the groups based on data analytics processing of the groups of sensed data.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the data analytics processing comprises pattern recognition processing.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the controller is further operative to sense numbers of occupants within one or more of the groups based on the data analytics processing of the groups of sensed data.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein at least a portion of the plurality of sensors comprises motion sensors and wherein sensing numbers of occupants within one or more of the groups based on the data analytics processing of the groups of sensed data comprises the controller being operative to:

group motion sensing data according to one or more identified rooms within the area;

perform the data analytics processing once every sampling period;

perform the data analytics processing on the motion sensing data to determine a number of occupants within the one or more identified rooms, and a level of certainty of the number of occupants.

16. A method of occupancy interaction detection, comprising:

sensing at least motion of an associate and a customer of an area;

receiving wireless beacons from a wireless device at least one of the associate or the customer, wherein the wireless beacons include identifier information of the associate and the customer;

identifying the at least one of the associate or the customer based on the identifier information;

tracking locations of the associate of the area based on the sensed motion of the associate;

tracking locations of the customer of the area based on the sensed motion of the customer;

identifying an interaction between the associate and the customer, comprising detecting the associate to be within a threshold distance of the customer based on the tracked locations of the associate and the tracked locations of the associate or the customer;

and

determining that the interaction between the associate and the customer is a customer engagement based on a time duration of the interaction; and

an environmental controller, wherein the environmental controller operates to control an environmental condition of the area, wherein the controller further operates to control the environmental controller to control the environmental condition of the area based at least in part on the tracked locations of at least one of the associate or the customer.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising generating a profile of at least one of the associate or the customer based on identification of the at least one of the associate or the customer and tracked motion of the at least one of the associate or the customer.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising generating detecting a customer engagement, comprising:

associating the identifier of the associate or the customer with a sales associate;

detecting the customer engagement based on the identified interaction between the associate an the customer, and the association of the sales associate with the identifier of the associate or the customer.