SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OCCUPANCY ESTIMATION
First Claim
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1. A system for estimating occupancy in a region, the system comprising:
- an input operably connected to receive sensor data from one or more sensor devices, including at least one or more motion detection sensors that provides an output having a first state or a second state, the first state indicating that no occupants have been detected within a particular region, the second state indicating that at least one occupant has been detected within a particular region;
an occupancy estimator operably connected to the input, wherein the occupancy estimator executes an algorithm to generate an occupancy estimate for the region based on the received sensor data and a model-based occupancy estimate generated by an occupant traffic model, wherein based on the state of the data provided by the motion detection sensor, the algorithm assigns to the data a reliability value; and
an output operably connected to the occupancy estimator to communicate the occupancy estimate generated by the occupancy estimator.
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Abstract
An occupancy estimator calculates an occupancy estimate (x) of a region based on sensor data (z) provided by one or more sensor devices and a model-based occupancy estimate generated by an occupant traffic model (f). The occupant traffic model (f) is based on predicted movement of occupants throughout a region. The occupancy estimation system includes an occupancy estimator algorithm (20) that combines the sensor data (z) and the model-based occupancy estimate generated by the occupant traffic model (f) to generate an occupancy estimate (x) for the region.
83 Citations
24 Claims
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1. A system for estimating occupancy in a region, the system comprising:
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an input operably connected to receive sensor data from one or more sensor devices, including at least one or more motion detection sensors that provides an output having a first state or a second state, the first state indicating that no occupants have been detected within a particular region, the second state indicating that at least one occupant has been detected within a particular region; an occupancy estimator operably connected to the input, wherein the occupancy estimator executes an algorithm to generate an occupancy estimate for the region based on the received sensor data and a model-based occupancy estimate generated by an occupant traffic model, wherein based on the state of the data provided by the motion detection sensor, the algorithm assigns to the data a reliability value; and an output operably connected to the occupancy estimator to communicate the occupancy estimate generated by the occupancy estimator. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3)
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4. A system for estimating occupancy in a region, the system comprising:
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an input operably connected to receive sensor data from one or more sensor devices, wherein the input provided by the sensor devices provides information regarding a number of occupants moving between adjacent regions; an occupancy estimator operably connected to the input, wherein the occupancy estimator executes an algorithm to generate a state estimate for the region based on the received sensor data and a model-based state estimate generated by an occupant traffic model, wherein the state estimate is comprised of state variables that include both occupancy estimates for the region and flow estimates associated with the number of occupants moving between adjacent regions; and an output operably connected to the occupancy estimator to communicate the state variable generated by the occupancy estimator. - View Dependent Claims (5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method for estimating occupancy in a region, the method comprising:
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acquiring sensor data from one or more sensor devices, wherein at least one of the sensor devices provide data indicative of a number of occupants moving between regions; calculating model-based estimates of state variables that include model-based estimates of number of occupants located in each region as well as model-based estimates of number of occupants flowing between regions based on an occupant traffic model that predicts movement of occupants within a region; and generating a corrected estimate associated with each state variable by combining the model-based estimate of each state variable with the acquired sensor data. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. The method of claim 16, wherein sensor input provided by a motion detection sensor is interpreted by the sensor model based on whether the motion detection sensor detects an unoccupied region or an occupied region, wherein if an unoccupied region is detected then the sensor model interprets the sensor data as reliable, and wherein if an occupied region is detected then the sensor model is interpreted as noisy.
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17. A system for estimating occupancy in a region, the system comprising:
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means for acquiring sensor data from one or more sensor devices, wherein at least one of the sensor devices provide data indicative of a number of occupants moving between regions; means for calculating model-based estimates of state variables that include model-based estimates of number of occupants located in each region as well as model-based estimates of number of occupants flowing between regions based on an occupant traffic model that predicts movement of occupants within a region; and means for generating a corrected estimate associated with each state variable by combining the model-based estimate of each state variable with the acquired sensor data. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A computer readable storage medium encoded with a machine-readable computer program code for generating thereof propagation estimates for a region, the computer readable storage medium including instructions for causing a controller to implement a method comprising:
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acquiring input from one or more sensor devices, wherein at least one of the sensor devices provides data indicative of a number of occupants flowing between adjacent regions; calculating a model-based estimate of state variables that include number of occupants in each region and number of occupants flowing between adjacent regions based on an occupant traffic model; and generating a corrected estimate associated with each state variable by combining the model-based estimate of each state variable with the acquired sensor data, wherein the corrected estimate includes a mean and covariance associated with each state variable. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24)
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Specification