System for determining the number of shoppers in a retail store and for processing that information to produce data for store management
First Claim
1. A system for automatically counting people or objects as they move past a selected location, and for measuring their heights, said system comprising:
- means for emitting beams toward a person or object moving past a selected location to generate reflected beams from said person or object, the included angle of an emitted and reflected beam being a function of the height of the person or object;
position detecting means for detecting said reflected beams and generating signals that vary in response to the positions at which the reflected beams strike the detecting means, said signals thereby being representative of the included angle and thereby representing a height profile of the person or object from which the beams are reflected; and
means for converting said signals to data representing the number of persons or objects in a selected category.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system for automatically counting people as they move past a selected location, and for measuring their heights. The system includes emitters for emitting beams toward persons moving past a selected location to generate reflected beams from the person, such that the included angle of the emitted and reflected beams is a function of the person'"'"'s height. A detector detects the reflected beams and generates signals representative of the included angle, and thus representative of the height of the person. The signals representative of the height of the person are converted to data that may be used for evaluation purposes. The system is particularly adaptable for use in retail stores for determining the number of shopper units in the store during selected time periods and evaluating store performance based, in part, on the conversion of shopper units to actual customers.
70 Citations
22 Claims
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1. A system for automatically counting people or objects as they move past a selected location, and for measuring their heights, said system comprising:
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means for emitting beams toward a person or object moving past a selected location to generate reflected beams from said person or object, the included angle of an emitted and reflected beam being a function of the height of the person or object; position detecting means for detecting said reflected beams and generating signals that vary in response to the positions at which the reflected beams strike the detecting means, said signals thereby being representative of the included angle and thereby representing a height profile of the person or object from which the beams are reflected; and means for converting said signals to data representing the number of persons or objects in a selected category. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10)
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9. A system for automatically counting people or objects as they move past a selected store location, such as a doorway or other location, for measuring their heights, and for determining the number of shopper units in the store during selected periods of time, said system comprising:
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at least one optics module at said location, said optics module having at least two infrared light emitting diodes and corresponding lenses for generating and directing at least to infrared beams from a location above the person or object as the person or object moves past said location downwardly toward the floor, and at least one infrared beam position sensitive detector for detecting the positions of reflected beams generated thereon upon emitted beams striking a person or object, said position sensitive detector generating signals that vary depending on the positions on the detector at which the reflected beams strike the detector as a person or object moves past said selected location for generating signals representing a height profile of the person or object from which the beams are reflected; and means for converting said signals to data representing the number of shopping units based on preselected criteria. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A system for automatically counting people or objects as they move past a selected location, for measuring their heights, and for integrating the count and height information with data from a point-of-sale system to generate information for store management:
- said system comprising
means for emitting beams toward persons or objects moving past a selected location to generate reflected beams from said persons or objects; means for detecting said reflected beams and for generating signals representative of the heights of said persons or objects; means for converting said signals to data representing the number and heights of said persons or objects; means for integrating said number and height data with data from a store point-of-sale system; and means for generating data for use in store management in response to said integrated data. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
- said system comprising
Specification