METERING INFORMATION COLLECTION

• US 20150003665A1
• Filed: 06/27/2013
• Published: 01/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Kumar, Anil
• Granted Patent: US 9,104,917 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/62 Text, e.g. of license plates, overlay texts or captions on TV images
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/02 Recognising information on displays, dials, clocks

Abstract

A computing device configured to gather utility metering information. In embodiments, the computing device may comprise a transceiver and an image processing module. The image processing module may be coupled to the transceiver and configured to receive an image utilizing the transceiver. The image may include one or more utility meters. The image processing module may be further configured to extract metering information from the one or more utility meters of the image and transmit this metering information to a utility provider associated with the utility meter Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable storage media having instructions stored thereon configured to cause a computing device, in response to execution of the instructions by the computing device, to:

receive an image of one or more utility meters;

process the image of the one or more utility meters to extract from the image at least metering information for respective ones of the one or more utility meters; and

transmit at least the extracted metering information of the one or more utility meters to a utility service provider.

2. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein receive an image comprises receive an image from an image capture device via a wireless data connection coupling the computing device and the image capture device.

3. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 2, wherein the wireless data connection comprises a secure data connection.

4. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein process the image comprises performance of an optical character recognition (OCR) process on the image.

5. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the instructions to process the image further cause the computing device to select a metering information extraction process for a first of the one or more utility meters of the image and to perform the selected metering information extraction process on the image to extract at least the metering information from the image for the first utility meter.

6. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 5, wherein the instructions to process the image further cause the computing device to determine a type associated with the first of the one or more utility meters and the selection of the metering information extraction process is based, at least in part, on the type.

7. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 6, wherein the type associated with the first of the one or more utility meters is based, at least in part, on a shape of the first of the one or more utility meters.

8. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, an image of one or more utility meters;

processing, by the computing device, the image of the one or more utility meters to extract from the image at least metering information for respective ones of the one or more utility meters; and

transmitting, by the computing device at least the extracted metering information to a utility service provider.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein receiving an image further comprises receiving an image from an image capture device via a wireless data connection coupling the computing device and the image capture device.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the wireless data connection comprises a secure data connection.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein processing the image comprises performing an optical character recognition (OCR) process on the image.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein processing the image further comprises selecting a metering information extraction process for a first of the one or more utility meters of the image and performing the selected metering information extraction process on the image to extract at least the metering information from the image for the first utility meter.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein processing the image further comprises determining a type associated with the first of the one or more utility meters and the selection of the metering information extraction process is based, at least in part, on the type.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein the type associated with the first of the one or more utility meters is based, at least in part, on a shape of the first of the one or more utility meters extracted from the image.

15. A computing device comprising:

a transceiver configured to transmit and receive data over a data connection with a utility meter accessory configured to be associated with one or more utility meters;

one or more computing processors coupled to the transceiver; and

an image processing module configured to be operated by the computing processors to;

receive, from the utility meter accessory, an image of the one or more utility meters;

process the image of the one or more utility meters to extract from the image at least metering information for respective ones of the one or more utility meters; and

transmit at least the extracted metering information to a utility service provider.

16. The computing device of claim 15, wherein the data connection comprises a wireless data connection coupling the computing device and the metering accessory and the wireless data connection comprises an encrypted data connection.

17. The computing device of claim 15, wherein process the image of the one or more utility meters comprises performance of an optical character recognition (OCR) process on the image.

18. The computing device of claim 15, wherein the image processing module is further configured to select a metering information extraction process for a first of the one or more utility meters of the image;

and to perform the selected metering information extraction process on the image to extract the metering information from the image for the first utility meter.

19. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the image processing module is further configured to determine a type associated with the first of the one or more utility meters and the selection of the metering information extraction process is based, at least in part, on the type.

20. The computing device of claim 19, wherein the type associated with the first of the one or more utility meters is based, at least in part, on a shape of the first of the one or more utility meters.

21. A system comprising:

a metering accessory; and

a utility meter data collection station;

wherein the metering accessory is configured to be associated with one or more utility meters, capture an image of the one or more utility meters, and send the image to the utility meter data collection station; and

wherein the utility meter data collection station is configured to receive and process the image of the one or more utility meters to extract from the image at least metering information for respective ones of the one or more utility meters, and send at least the extracted metering information to an utility service provider.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the metering accessory comprises a housing configured to attach the metering accessory to at least one of the one or more utility meters.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the utility meter data collection station is configured to control the metering accessory to perform the capture and send at predetermined time intervals.

24. The system of claim 22, wherein the metering accessory further comprises a wireless communication interface configured to wirelessly receive a control signal from the utility meter data collection station to command the metering accessory to capture and send the image.

25. The system of claim 21 wherein either or both of the metering accessory or the utility meter data collection station are mobile devices.