SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MEASURING THE CROWDEDNESS OF PEOPLE AT A PLACE

• US 20150304815A1
• Filed: 06/17/2013
• Published: 10/22/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TATA Consultancy Services Limited (Tata Sons Pvt Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: TATA Consultancy Services Limited (Tata Sons Pvt Ltd.)
• Inventors: Ghose, Avik, Pal, Arpan, Dutta Choudhury, Anirban, Bhaumik, Chirabrata
• Granted Patent: US 9,420,424 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

A method, system and apparatus for determining crowdedness at a location, using a first portable communication device having a proximity sensor, wherein the location of a first user is determined using the first portable communication device having an application installed on a memory module thereof, wherein the application is configured to connect to a location sensor embedded in the first portable communication device. The method and system further comprises sensing and identifying a second portable communication device in vicinity of the first user, followed by transmitting a media access control address (MAC address) of the identified second portable communication device to a remote fusion server. Further removing redundancies pertaining to the identified second portable communication device based on the MAC address received by the remote fusion server using a fusion algorithm to determine the crowdedness at the determined location.

Claims

1. A method for determining crowdedness at a location, using a first portable communication device having a proximity sensor, the method comprising:

determining the location of a first user using the first portable communication device having an application installed on a memory module thereof, wherein the application is configured to connect to a plurality of location sensors embedded therein the first portable communication device;

sensing and identifying a second portable communication device in vicinity of the first user at said location using the proximity sensor of the first portable communication device;

transmitting a media access control address of the identified second portable communication device to a remote fusion server using a communication means of the first portable communication device; and

removing redundancies pertaining to the identified second portable communication device based on the media access control address received by the remote fusion server using a fusion algorithm to determine the crowdedness at the determined location.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising capturing geo-tagged information of a plurality of other users from a plurality of pre-defined sources corresponding to the determined location and mapping with respect to the first user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a first constant for compensating uncertainty of identified second devices is determined by taking a ratio of number of devices present at the location to an empirical value of number of devices believed to be present at the location.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the fusion algorithm further comprises multiplying the determined devices count with the first constant and adding a second constant to the product, wherein the second constant determined by historical data collected for a defined time period by running the application in a closed loop environment for a plurality of iterations.

5. The method for determining the location of the first user of claim 1, wherein a public location is determined by the application by implementing a method comprising:

accessing the location sensors selected from an available Wi-Fi network or global positioning system (GPS) or location server or combination thereof at a predefined interval of time;

extrapolating a route using an accelerometer embedded in the portable communication device; and

determining the location by mapping the extrapolated route with the location sensors.

6. The method for determining the location of the first user of claim 5, wherein the public location comprises of a train station or a bus station or a taxi stand or a shopping mall.

7. The method for determining the location of claim 1, wherein the location being inside a train or a bus or a closed loop environment is determined using a method comprising:

retrieving a last location of the first user from the remote fusion server;

capturing velocity of the first user using an accelerometer embedded in the portable communication device or an ultrasound data from a beacon;

transmitting the captured velocity or ultrasound data to the remote fusion server; and

determining the location by mapping the last location retrieved with the transmitted captured velocity or ultrasound data.

8. A system for determining crowdedness at a location, the system comprising:

fusion server comprising a data reception module and a data processing unit configured to derive a probabilistic count approximation;

at least one first portable communication device, having an application embedded therein configured to determine location, devices information aggregation and transmission of said information, communicatively coupled with the remote fusion server using at least one communication means;

a proximity sensor mounted thereon the first portable communication device and is operably coupled with said application, wherein the proximity sensor is adapted to sense and identify media access control address of a second portable communication device in vicinity thereof; and

a plurality of location sensors embedded in the first portable communication device that enables location determination.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the proximity sensor is a wireless technology enabled sensor.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the plurality of location sensors is selected from a global positioning system, an ultrasound beacon, a Wi-Fi network, or any combination thereof.

11. The system of claim 8, further comprises a fusion algorithm installed on the remote server configured to analyze the capture data pertaining to the at least one second portable communication device.

12. An apparatus for estimating the crowdedness at a location, the apparatus comprising:

an application embedded on a memory module of a portable communication device configured to cause the device to be a synchronous receptacle to a plurality of devices in a vicinity thereof;

at least one proximity sensor mounted on the portable communication device and is operatively coupled to said application;

at least one location sensor mounted on the portable communication device configured to detect a spatial position of the portable communication device and to communicably receive a position information from an external source;

at least one computation engine in said portable communication device configured to remove redundancies in the sensed devices in the proximity and accumulated entries thereof in a predefined time frame; and

a communication means configured to transmit a media access control address of said accumulated devices.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the at least one computation engine is a fusion engine.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, further comprising a communications interface in the portable communication device configured to establish communication between the portable communication device and the at least one server for transmitting accumulated media access control addresses of the sensed devices.