Walker behavior detection apparatus

• US 7,811,203 B2
• Filed: 09/28/2006
• Issued: 10/12/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Advanced Systems Corp. (Hitachi, Ltd.), Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi Advanced Systems Corp. (Hitachi, Ltd.), Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Satou, Shinobu, Inoue, Hideki, Higuchi, So, Otsu, Fumitaka, Unuma, Munetoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Mathew; Fenn C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tecco; Andrew M
• Application Number:
  US11/528,329
• Publication Number:
  US 20070072158A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,475 Days
• Field of Search: 482/54, 482/8, 482/3, 434/247, 701213-216, 600/587
• US Class Current: 482/8
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0242 adapted to measure environmental factors, e.g. temperature, pollution
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/11 Measuring movement of the entire body or parts thereof, e.g. head or hand tremor, mobility of a limb for measuring pulse A61B5/02 ;A61B5/1038 takes precedence; motion detection to correct for motion artifacts in physiological signals A61B5/721
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1112 Global tracking of patients, e.g. by using GPS
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 22/006 Pedometers
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/23 Recognition of whole body movements, e.g. for sport training

Abstract

A behavior of a walker is detected according to combination of detection of the walking behavior on a level and an altitude variation of the walker to more accurately detect the behavior of the walker. A burned calorie can be obtained according to the type of the walking behavior. An altitude variation can be obtained more accurately by integrating altitude variation only at sections with vertical movement during walking. A stride is estimated according to the behavior of the walker in consideration of the vertical movement. Obtained position and traveling direction are used for compensating values in inertial navigation system. The behavior with and without vertical movement is used in a walker navigator and a worker observing system including a worker terminal carried by the walker for detecting the behavior of the worker and a worker observing terminal for providing the detected position and behavior of the walker.

Claims

1. A walking behavior detection apparatus for a walker comprising:

first detecting means for detecting a horizontal walking behavior of a walker regarding a level;

altitude variation detecting means for detecting altitude variation of the walker;

estimating means for estimating a walking behavior of the walker on the basis of a combination of the horizontal walking behavior and the detected altitude variation, wherein said walking behavior comprises a plurality of distinct categories based on said combination;

a database for storing geographical information corresponding to the detected behavior of the walker;

a second detecting means for detecting a position and a traveling direction of the walker;

change point detecting means for detecting a behavior change point of the walking behavior of the walker on the basis of the estimated walking behavior of the walker and a geographical change point being that geographical information stored in the database which corresponds to the estimated behavior of the walker; and

compensating means for compensating the detected position of the walker and the detected traveling direction on the basis of the behavior change point and the geographical change point.

2. The walker behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the detecting means detects a behavior variation of the walker to generate a behavior variation signal and detects an amount of characteristic from the behavior variation signal using at least one of acceleration variation detection means for detecting an acceleration variation of the walker, means for detecting variation in electric field intensity, and a gyro sensor.

3. The walker behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the altitude variation detecting means comprises at least one of a barometric pressure sensor, a GPS unit, and an altitude detection means for detecting an altitude using a Radio Frequency Identification unit.

4. The walker behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

a table showing a relation between a walking behavior and corresponding burned calorie; and

obtaining means for obtaining and outputting a burned calorie of the walker with reference to the table and the estimated walking behavior.

5. The walker behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

a navigation unit including a geographical database for storing geographical data and an outputting unit for providing navigation information to the walker on the basis of the estimated walking behavior and the geographical data.

6. The walker behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

a worker terminal, including the recognizing means, carried by the walker; and

a worker observing terminal, separated from the worker terminal, having communication unit for communicating with the worker terminal, for outputting the estimated walking behavior.

7. The walking behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the detecting means comprises:

horizontal movement detecting means for detecting a horizontal movement of the walker;

horizontal movement distinguishing means for distinguishing the horizontal movement with a vertical movement threshold to detect the horizontal walking behavior;

vertical movement detecting means for detecting a vertical movement of the walker; and

vertical movement distinguishing means for distinguishing vertical movement with a vertical movement threshold to detect the altitude variation of the walker.

8. The walking behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 1, further comprising vertical movement judging means for judging the altitude variation between presence and absence of the vertical movement, wherein the estimating means estimates the walking behavior on the basis of the combination of the horizontal walking behavior and the result of judging the altitude variation between presence and absence of the vertical movement.

9. The walker behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 8, further comprising:

vertical movement extracting means for extracting at least a section on which the walker walks where the estimated walking behavior shows the presence of vertical movement and detecting an altitude variation in the extracted section; and

integrating means for integrating the altitude variation of the walker only in the extracted section to determine an altitude variation of the walker.

10. The walker behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 8, further comprising:

stride estimating means for, when the detecting means detects the walking behavior as walking on a level, estimating a stride of walking on the level; and

compensating means for, when the detecting means detects the estimated walking behavior as walking with the presence of the vertical movement, compensating the estimated stride on the basis of the estimated walking behavior to obtain a moving speed and a traveling distance of the walker in accordance with the stride from the compensating means.

11. A walker behavior detection apparatus comprising:

walker behavior detecting means for detecting a behavior of a walker;

wherein said walking behavior comprises a plurality of distinct categories;

a database for storing geographical information corresponding to the detected behavior of the walker;

detecting means for detecting a position and a traveling direction of the walker;

change point detecting means for detecting a behavior change point of the walking behavior of the walker on the basis of the estimated walking behavior of the walker and a geographical change point being that geographical information stored in the database which corresponds to the detected behavior change point as a position output and a traveling direction output from the geographic information in the database; and

compensating means for compensating the detected position of the walker and the detected traveling direction on the basis of the behavior change point and the geographical change point which corresponds to the detected behavior change point with the position output and the traveling direction output.

12. The walker behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 11, further comprising:

an inertial navigation system including an acceleration sensor for detecting a position and a traveling direction of the walker; and

compensating means for compensating the position information and the traveling direction information from the inertial navigation system on the basis of the detected position and traveling direction.

13. A walking behavior detection apparatus for a walker comprising:

first detecting means for detecting a horizontal walking behavior of a walker regarding a level;

a database for storing geographical information corresponding to the detected behavior of the walker;

altitude variation detecting means for detecting altitude variation of the walker;

estimating means for estimating a walking behavior of the walker on the basis of a combination of the horizontal walking behavior and the detected altitude variation;

second detecting means for detecting a position and a traveling direction the walker in which an error is accumulative;

change point detecting means for detecting a behavior change point of the walking behavior of the walker and a geographical change point of geographical information corresponding to the detected behavior change point as a position output and a traveling direction output from the geographic information in the database; and

compensating means for compensating the detected position and traveling direction of the walker on the basis of the geographical change point which corresponds to the detected behavior change point with the position output and the traveling direction output to suppress the error.

14. The walking behavior detection apparatus as claimed in claim 13, wherein the compensating means compensates the detected traveling direction of the walker on the basis of the behavior change point and the geographical change point to suppress the error.