Method and apparatus for monitoring human attention in dynamic power management

• US 20040175020A1
• Filed: 03/05/2003
• Published: 09/09/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Bradski, Gary R., Tsirkel, Aaron M.
• Granted Patent: US 7,379,560 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3231 Monitoring the presence, absence or movement of users
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/012 Head tracking input arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/165 using facial parts and geometric relationships
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Method and apparatus of the present invention include an image-capturing device coupled to a computer system. An image captured by the image-capturing device is analyzed using a face tracking technique to learn behaviors of the user. This may include determining if the user is paying attention. The attention may be toward a display of the computer system. When the user does not pay attention, power consumption of one or more components of the computer system is reduced.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

an image-capturing device; and

a power management logic coupled to the image-processing device, wherein the power management logic is to perform one or more power management operations based on one or more behaviors of a user in an image captured by the image-capturing device.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the behaviors of the user include user attention.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein when a user is not paying attention, the one or more power management operations includes operations to reduce power consumption of one or more components.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the one or more components includes a display.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the one or more operations to reduce the power consumption is performed when the user is not paying attention to the display.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the one or more operations to reduce the power consumption include operations to dim the display and operations to power off the display.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an image-processing logic coupled to the image-capturing device, the image-processing logic is to analyze the image and to determine the one or more behaviors of the user.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the image-processing logic includes logic to perform face tracking.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the image-processing logic includes logic to perform eyes tracking.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the image-processing logic further includes logic to perform gaze tracking.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein a first set of power management operations is performed when a first behavior is determined, and a second set of power management operations is performed when a second behavior is determined.

12. A method, comprising:

reducing power consumption of one or more components in a computer system when a user associated with the computer system is not paying attention.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the computer system includes a display, and the power consumption of one or more components is reduced when the user is not paying attention to the display.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

performing one or more face tracking operations to detect a user'"'"'s face in an image captured by an image-capturing device coupled to the computer system.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

when the user'"'"'s face is detected, analyzing the user'"'"'s face to determine if the user is paying attention.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein analyzing the user'"'"'s face to determine if the user is paying attention includes performing gaze tracking to determine if the user is paying attention.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein reducing the power consumption of the one or more components in the computer system when the user is not paying attention comprises reducing the power consumption based on the period that the user has not been paying attention.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the image-capturing device is a digital camera.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the image-capturing device is a video recording camera.

20. A method, comprising:

performing one or more face tracking operations to detect a user'"'"'s face in an image captured by an image-capturing device coupled to a computer system;

when the user'"'"'s face is detected, performing one or more eyes tracking operations using the user'"'"'s face to determine user attention; and

performing one or more power management operations to control power consumption of one or more components of the computer system depending on the user attention.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the image-capturing device captures an image periodically.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the computer system includes a display, and wherein the attention of the user is determined based on whether the user is looking at the display.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein performing one or more power management operations to control power consumption includes reducing power consumption of the display when the user is not paying attention.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein reducing the power consumption of the display includes dimming the display or powering off the display.

25. The method of claim 20, wherein performing one or more eyes tracking operations using the user'"'"'s face to determine user attention includes performing gaze tracking.

26. A computer readable medium containing executable instructions which, when executed in a processing system, causes the processing system to perform a method comprising:

reducing power consumption of one or more components in a computer system when a user associated with the computer system is not paying attention.

27. The computer readable medium of claim 26, wherein the computer system includes a display.

28. The computer readable medium of claim 27, wherein the power consumption of one or more components is reduced when the user is not paying attention to the display.

29. The computer readable medium of claim 26, further comprising:

performing one or more face tracking operations to detect a user'"'"'s face in an image captured by an image-capturing device coupled to the computer system.

30. The computer readable medium of claim 29, further comprising:

when the user'"'"'s face is detected, performing gaze tracking to determine if the user is paying attention.

31. The computer readable medium of claim 26, wherein reducing the power consumption of the one or more components in the computer system when the user is not paying attention, comprises:

reducing the power consumption based on a period that the user has not been paying attention.

32. A method, comprising:

using a visual monitoring device to learn behaviors of a user when the user is using a computer system, wherein the learned behaviors of the user are used to control power consumption of one or more components of the computer system.

33. The method of claim 32, where the behaviors of the user are learned over a period of time.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the computer system includes a display and the behaviors of the user are learned with reference to the display.

35. The method of claim 32, wherein the behaviors of the user are learned by performing face tracking.

36. The method of claim 35, wherein the behaviors of the user are further learned by performing eye tracking.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the behaviors of the user are further learned by performing gaze tracking.