Traffic monitoring device

• US 8,873,804 B2
• Filed: 07/10/2012
• Issued: 10/28/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/11/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Optex Company Limited (OPTEX GROUP Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Optex Company Limited (OPTEX GROUP Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Kawahata, Yasutaka
• Primary Examiner(s): Abdi, Amara
• Application Number:
  US13/545,251
• Publication Number:
  US 20130016880A1
• Time in Patent Office: 840 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/7515 Shifting the patterns to accommodate for positional errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/53 Recognition of crowd images, e.g. recognition of crowd congestion
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/10 Human or animal bodies, e.g. vehicle occupants or pedestrians; Body parts, e.g. hands
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 9/00 Individual registration on entry or exit
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 9/15 with arrangements to prevent the passage of more than one individual at a time

Abstract

A traffic monitoring device determines accurately the number of objects (H) such as, for example, human bodies present within a supervised sector (8), without being affected by influences of a clinging condition of a plurality of heads and/or hairdos. In determining the number of the objects (H), this traffic monitoring device performs a template matching with template blocks (20) of the shape of the objects (H), in which block areas including heads (α), hairdos buffer units (β) and shoulders (γ) are represented by template images, relative to the block projected image acquired from a three dimensional object information resulting from a detection block (B1) related to the objects (H) present within the supervised sector (8).

Claims

1. A traffic monitoring device, which comprises:

an object information acquiring section including a detection block calculating unit for acquiring, with the use of distance images acquired by imaging an object from above within a supervised sector that is divided into a plurality of blocks, a block having distance measured pixels, obtained by imaging the object from above, as a detection block related to an object present within the supervised sector and operable to acquire a three dimensional object information by the detection block;

a block projected image generating unit for generating a block projected image, which is a two dimensional image of a height data of the detection block, by projecting onto a horizontal plane the detection blocks, each having a height data on a two dimensional plane;

a template setting unit for setting a template block of a shape related to the object within a block area, the template containing a head, a hairdos buffer and a shoulder rendered to be a template image;

a template matching unit for performing a template matching with a block projected image by means of the template block; and

a determining unit for determining the number of objects based on the template matching,

wherein the template block has the head adjacent to the hairdos buffer and the hairdos buffer adjacent to the shoulder.

2. The traffic monitoring device as claimed in claim 1, in which the template setting unit sets the block of the shape of an human body having at least the head of a predetermined height at a center portion thereof with respect to the shoulder.

3. The traffic monitoring device as claimed in claim 2, in which the template setting unit has a plurality of types of template blocks each having the different shape of the human body.

4. The traffic monitoring device as claimed in claim 2, in which, when heads of a plurality of human bodies approach as clinging together in a direction forwards or rearwards, leftwards or rightwards such that one human body is detected during the template matching, a detected human body, the template matching unit performs the template matching again with a head of the detected human body erased.

5. The traffic monitoring device as claimed in claim 1, in which the detection block calculating unit varies a threshold value of the number of distance measuring points according to an imaging distance of each block, when determination of whether or not they are blocks in which the object exists, is made on the basis of the number of distance measuring points within the blocks, in which imaging distance has been able to be obtained by the presence of the object.

6. The traffic monitoring device as claimed in claim 1, in which the detection block calculating unit adds a weighting according to an imaging distance of each pixel to objects, when determination of whether or not they are blocks in which the object exists, is made on the basis of the number of distance measuring points within the blocks, in which imaging distance has been able to be obtained by the presence of the object, with a threshold value of the number of the distance measuring point fixed.