Surveillance of stress conditions of persons using micro-impulse radar

• US 20120116202A1
• Filed: 12/30/2010
• Published: 05/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Deep Science LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Searete LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Bangera, Mahalaxmi Gita, Hyde, Roderick A., Ishikawa, Muriel Y., Jung, Edward K.Y., Kare, Jordin T., Leuthardt, Eric C., Myhrvold, Nathan P., Sweeney, Elizabeth A., Tegreene, Clarence T., Tuckerman, David B., Weaver, Thomas A., Wood, Lowell L. Jr., Wood, Victoria Y.H.
• Granted Patent: US 8,884,813 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/407
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/024 Detecting, measuring or recording pulse rate or heart rate A61B5/0205, A61B5/021 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0507 using microwaves or terahertz waves
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0816 Measuring devices for examining respiratory frequency measuring frequency of electric signals G01R23/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/113 occurring during breathing
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/165 Evaluating the state of mind, e.g. depression, anxiety
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7253 characterised by using transforms
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/0209 Systems with very large relative bandwidth, i.e. larger than 10 %, e.g. baseband, pulse, carrier-free, ultrawideband
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/52 Discriminating between fixed and moving objects or between objects moving at different speeds
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/867 Combination of radar systems with cameras
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/88 Radar or analogous systems specially adapted for specific applications electromagnetic prospecting or detecting of objects, e.g. near-field detection, G01V3/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/887 for detection of concealed objects, e.g. contraband or weapons
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/412 based on a comparison between measured values and known or stored values
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/415 Identification of targets based on measurements of movement associated with the target

Abstract

One or more computers are configured to determine a human stress condition corresponding to one or more physical or physiological parameters extracted from one or more micro-impulse radar (MIR) signals.

Claims

1. A surveillance system, comprising:

a micro-impulse radar configured to survey a region; and

a controller configured to receive an input signal from the micro-impulse radar, extract from the signal one or more physical or physiological attributes corresponding to a predicted human stress condition, and output a notification signal.

6. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the one or more physical or physiological attributes includes one or more physical and one or more physiological attributes.

9. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to receive or determine a range of the one or more physical or physiological attributes corresponding to normal range of human stress conditions in the region.

13. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to determine if the predicted human stress condition is anomalous compared to a normal range of human stress conditions in the region.

18. The surveillance system of claim 1, further comprising a notification interface operatively coupled to the controller;

and

wherein the notification signal is output via the notification interface.

21. The surveillance system of claim 18, wherein the notification interface includes an apparatus configured to project an optical designation onto or near a person exhibiting an anomalous predicted stress condition.

25. The surveillance system of claim 1, further comprising:

a camera operatively coupled to the controller and configured to capture a still or video image of a person probed by the micro-impulse radar.

26. The surveillance system of claim 25, wherein the controller is further configured to display the still or video image of the person probed by the micro-impulse radar via a notification interface.

27. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to determine or infer an identity of a person in the region.

30. The surveillance system of claim 27, wherein a magnitude of the predicted stress condition is determined as a function of the identity of the person.

32. The surveillance system of claim 25, further comprising:

a computer display; and

wherein the controller is configured to output to the computer display an image of the person in the region and a corresponding indicator of the predicted human stress condition corresponding to the person in the region.

33. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to determine a threat condition corresponding to the predicted human stress condition.

34. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to determine whether to output the notification signal as a function of time of day, a security threat status, or a security clearance status of a person in the region.

35. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to predict the human stress condition.

2-5. -5. (canceled)

7-8. -8. (canceled)

10-12. -12. (canceled)

14-17. -17. (canceled)

19-20. -20. (canceled)

22-24. -24. (canceled)

28-29. -29. (canceled)

31. (canceled)

36-44. -44. (canceled)

45. A method for surveilling persons, comprising:

probing a region with a micro-impulse radar to produce a micro-impulse radar signal;

decoding from the micro-impulse radar signal physiological information corresponding to a person scanned by the micro-impulse radar;

correlating the physiological information to a predicted stress condition; and

providing an indication of the predicted stress condition of the person.

52. The method for surveilling persons of claim 45, further comprising:

receiving or determining a range of the physiological information corresponding to normal range of human stress conditions in the region.

53. The method for surveilling persons of claim 52, wherein receiving or determining the range of physiological information corresponding to a normal range of human stress conditions further comprises:

determining the normal range of human stress conditions as a function of extracted physiological information.

55. The method for surveilling persons of claim 45, further comprising:

determining if the predicted human stress condition is anomalous compared to a normal range of human stress conditions in the region.

59. The method for surveilling persons of claim 45, further comprising:

determining if the predicted human stress condition is anomalous; and

determining, as a function of the predicted human stress condition anomaly, whether to output the indication.

63. The method for surveilling persons of claim 45, wherein providing the indication includes projecting an optical designation onto or near the person.

64. The method for surveilling persons of claim 45, wherein providing the indication includes outputting information to a computer display.

65. The method for surveilling persons of claim 45, further comprising:

capturing a still or video image of the person scanned by the micro-impulse radar with a camera.

66. The method for surveilling persons of claim 65, further comprising:

displaying the still or video image of the person scanned by the micro-impulse radar via a notification interface.

73. The method for surveilling persons of claim 45, wherein correlating the physiological information to a predicted stress condition includes performing a statistical analysis to maximize similarities or minimize differences according to a joint fit of a plurality of decoded physiological information to physiological information corresponding to a plurality of human stress conditions.

78. The method for surveilling persons of claim 45, further comprising:

determining or inferring an identity of the person.

79. The method for surveilling persons of claim 78, wherein the identity of the person is determined or inferred using biometric recognition or by reading an identity indicia carried by the person.

81. The method for surveilling persons of claim 78, wherein correlating the physiological information to a predicted stress condition is performed as a function of the identity of the person.

46-51. -51. (canceled)

54. (canceled)

56-58. -58. (canceled)

60-62. -62. (canceled)

67-72. -72. (canceled)

74-77. -77. (canceled)

80. (canceled)

82-120. -120. (canceled)

121. A system configured to track a person exhibiting a stress condition, comprising:

a first micro-impulse radar configured to probe a first region at least partially occupied by a person and produce first micro-impulse radar data related to one or more first attributes of the person;

a first computer processing resource operatively coupled to the first micro-impulse radar and configured to predict a stress condition of the person from the one or more first attributes of the person included in the first micro-impulse radar data;

a camera configured to capture one or more images of the person; and

a second computer processing resource operatively coupled to the first computer processing resource and the camera, and configured to correlate the predicted stress condition with the one or more images of the person.

124. The system configured to track a person exhibiting a stress condition of claim 121, further comprising:

at least one second camera operatively coupled to the second computer processing resource and configured to capture at least one image of the person in at least a second region; and

wherein the second computing resource is configured to operate the at least one second camera to track the person as the person moves between a field-of-view of the first camera and the second region.

125. The system configured to track a person exhibiting a stress condition of claim 124, further comprising:

a human interface configured to provide information to a second person; and

a third computer processing resource operatively coupled to the human interface, the second computer processing resource, the camera, the at least one second camera, and the first computer processing resource, the third computer processing resource being configured to present information including images of the person and information related to the predicted stress condition of the person as the person moves between regions.

138. The system configured to track a person exhibiting a stress condition of claim 121, further comprising:

a notification interface operatively coupled to the first computer processing resource;

wherein the first computer processing resource is further configured to output notification data or a notification signal via the notification interface for at least some predicted stress conditions.

139. The system configured to track a person exhibiting a stress condition of claim 138, wherein the first computer processing resource is configured to compare the predicted stress condition to a range of stress conditions, infer a risk condition, and output the notification data or notification signal when the risk condition corresponds to a condition where a risk is posed to the person or to others.

142. The system configured to track a person exhibiting a stress condition of claim 121, wherein the one or more first attributes of the person include one or more physical attributes, one or more physiological attributes, or one or more physical attributes and one or more physiological attributes.

122-123. -123. (canceled)

126-137. -137. (canceled)

140-141. -141. (canceled)

143-148. -148. (canceled)

149. A method for tracking a person with a stress condition, comprising:

probing a person with a micro-impulse radar to produce a micro-impulse radar signal;

analyzing the micro-impulse radar signal to determine a predicted stress condition corresponding to the person;

correlating the micro-impulse radar signal with a video image of the person; and

using video image processing to track the movements of the person with at least one video camera.

154. The method for tracking a person with a stress condition of claim 149, wherein the micro-impulse radar signal includes data corresponding to one or more first attributes of the person;

and

wherein analyzing the micro-impulse radar signal to determine a predicted stress condition corresponding to the person includes correlating the one or more first attributes to the predicted stress condition.

155. The method for tracking a person with a stress condition of claim 154, wherein the one or more first attributes of the person include one or more physical attributes, one or more physiological attributes, or one or more physical attributes and one or more physiological attributes.

160. The method for tracking a person with a stress condition of claim 149, wherein analyzing the micro-impulse radar signal to determine a predicted stress condition corresponding to the person includes comparing the predicted stress condition to a range of stress conditions;

and

further comprising;

inferring a risk condition corresponding to the person.

166. The method for tracking a person with a stress condition of claim 149, wherein correlating the micro-impulse radar signal with a video image of the person includes correlating a location of the person in the micro-impulse radar signal to a location of the person in the video image.

167. The method for tracking a person with a stress condition of claim 149, further comprising:

correlating a second micro-impulse radar signal with a second video image of the person; and

wherein using video image processing to track the movements of the person with at least one video camera includes determining a correlation between the video image and the second video image of the person.

168. The method for tracking a person with a stress condition of claim 149, wherein using video image processing to track the movements of the person with at least one video camera includes tracking movements of the person as the person moves between fields of view of two or more video cameras.

169. The method for tracking a person with a stress condition of claim 149, wherein using video image processing to track the movements of the person with at least one video camera includes controlling the at least one video camera to keep the person in a field-of-view of the at least one video camera.

170. The method for tracking a person with a stress condition of claim 149, further comprising:

outputting the video image of the person and the predicted stress condition of the person via a human interface.

150-153. -153. (canceled)

156-159. -159. (canceled)

161-165. -165. (canceled)

171-223. -223. (canceled)

224. A method for evaluating a risk condition corresponding to a person, comprising:

operating a micro-impulse radar configured to probe a plurality of persons to produce a micro-impulse radar signal;

determining one or more physiological parameters from the micro-impulse radar signal corresponding to each of the plurality of persons;

analyzing the one or more physiological parameters; and

indicating a person whose one or more physiological parameters are functionally related to the one or more physiological parameters of other persons.

231. The method for evaluating a risk condition corresponding to a person of claim 224, further comprising:

comparing the one or more physiological parameters corresponding to each person to a function of the one or more physiological parameters from the plurality of persons.

236. The method for evaluating a risk condition corresponding to a person of claim 224, wherein analyzing the one or more physiological parameters includes performing a joint fit between one or more physiological parameters from a plurality of persons to determine one or more persons exhibiting outlying physiological parameters.

242. The method for evaluating a risk condition corresponding to a person of claim 224, wherein the one or more physiological parameters includes one or more of heart rate, respiration rate, heart anomaly, respiration anomaly, magnitude of heartbeat, magnitude of respiration, a rate or magnitude of inhalation, a rate or magnitude of exhalation, a tremor of all or part of a body, intracyclic characteristic of a heartbeat, intracyclic characteristic of respiration, or digestive muscle activity.

243. The method for evaluating a risk condition corresponding to a person of claim 224, wherein the one or more physiological parameters includes one or more of heart rate, respiration rate, and body movements.

244. The method for evaluating a risk condition corresponding to a person of claim 224, further comprising:

determining one or more physical parameters from each of the plurality of persons;

analyzing the one or more physical parameters; and

wherein indicating a person includes indicating a person whose one or more physical parameters are functionally related to the one or more physical parameters of other persons.

245. The method for evaluating a risk condition corresponding to a person of claim 244, wherein the one or more physical parameters includes one or more of body size, body mass, height, body shape, posture, body permittivity, carried or otherwise associated articles, detectable body ornamentation, or body movements.

246. The method for evaluating a risk condition corresponding to a person of claim 244, wherein the one or more physical parameters includes a carried article including a weapon.

225-230. -230. (canceled)

232-235. -235. (canceled)

237-241. -241. (canceled)

247-271. -271. (canceled)