Methods and apparatus to monitor shoppers in a retail environment

• US 9,288,268 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2008
• Issued: 03/15/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nielsen Consumer LLC (Nielsen Holdings plc)
• Original Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Inventors: Ramaswamy, Arun, Alonso, Rafael E., Martensen, Fred A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, John Q
• Assistant Examiner(s): WHALEN, MICHAEL F
• Application Number:
  US12/164,819
• Publication Number:
  US 20090326807A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,815 Days
• Field of Search: 701/207, 701/519, 340/988
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

Methods and apparatus to monitor shoppers in a retail environment are disclosed herein. In a disclosed example method, a first signal is transmitted via a first device in a first direction to a second device and a second signal is transmitted via the first device in a second direction to a third device associated with a shopper. A direction of travel of the third device is determined based on the first signal and a path of travel of the third device through a monitored establishment is determined based on the second signal.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

determining a direction of travel of a third device associated with a shopper based on a first signal transmitted via a first device in a first direction to a second device; and

determining a path of travel of the third device through a monitored establishment based on a second signal transmitted via the first device in a second direction to the third device.

2. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein the first signal is an infrared signal and further including transmitting information associated with the first signal from the second device to a server via a radio frequency signal.

3. The method as defined in claim 1, further including storing first direction information at the second device indicative of the direction of travel in association with a first timestamp indicative of a first time at which an event associated with the direction of travel was detected at the second device.

4. The method as defined in claim 3, further including transmitting the first direction information and the first timestamp and a plurality of other direction information and respective timestamps to a server.

5. The method as defined in claim 3, wherein the event includes detecting a first interruption in the reception of the first signal at the first time via a first sensor of the second device and detecting a second interruption in the reception of the first signal at a second time via a second sensor of the second device.

6. The method as defined in claim 5, wherein the determining the direction of travel of the third device inlcudes determining the direction of travel of the third device based on the first timestamp indicative of the first time and a second timestamp indicative of the second time.

7. The method as defined in claim 1, further including communicating information to a server from the second device indicative of an error associated with at least one of transmission of the first signal or reception of the first signal.

8. The method as defined in claim 7, further including presenting a notification via the server based on the information indicative of the error.

9. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein the second signal includes an identifier of a location in the monitored establishment proximate the first device.

10. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein the monitored establishment is one of a retail establishment or a commercial establishment.

11. The method as defined in claim 1, further including storing a duration value indicative of a duration between the occurrence of a first event associated with determining the direction of travel based on the first signal and a second event associated with determining a second direction of travel based on the first signal.

12. The method as defined in claim 11, wherein the first and second events include obstructing the first signal.

13. The method as defined in claim 1, further including storing at the second device a first count value indicative of a first quantity of persons detected as traveling in a first direction and a second count value indicative of a second quantity of persons detected as traveling in a second direction.

14. The method as defined in claim 1, further including determining via the third device whether the second signal includes a code matching a start code value.

15. A system, comprising:

a first device to transmit a first signal via a first source in a first direction and a second signal via a second source in a second direction;

a second device to receive the first signal and determine a direction of travel of a shopper based on detecting an interruption of the reception of the first signal at the second device; and

a third device to receive the second signal and store a location identification code received via the second signal in a path of travel log indicative of at least one path of travel through a monitored establishment.

16. The system as defined in claim 15, wherein the first signal is an infrared signal, and wherein the second device is further to transmit the direction of travel to a server via a radio frequency transmitter.

17. The system as defined in claim 15, wherein the second device is to store the direction of travel in association with a first timestamp entry, the first timestamp entry being indicative of a time at which the interruption in the reception of the first signal occurred.

18. The system as defined in claim 17, wherein the second device is further to transmit the direction of travel and the first timestamp entry and a plurality of other direction of travel information and respective timestamp entries to a server.

19. The system as defined in claim 15, wherein the second device detects the interruption in the reception of the first signal via a first sensor at a first time and detects a second interruption in the reception of the first signal via a second sensor at a second time.

20. The system as defined in claim 19, wherein the second device is to determine the direction of travel based on a first timestamp value indicative of the first time and a second timestamp value indicative of the second time.

21. The system as defined in claim 15, further including a server communicatively coupled to the second device, wherein the second device is further to communicate information to the server indicative of an error associated with at least one of transmission of the first signal or reception of the first signal.

22. The system as defined in claim 21, wherein the server is further to present a notification based on the information indicative of the error.

23. The system as defined in claim 15, wherein the location identification code is indicative of an area of a retail establishment.

24. The system as defined in claim 15, wherein the second device is further to store a duration value indicative of a duration between the occurrence of a first event associated with determining the direction of travel based on the first signal and a second event associated with determining a second direction of travel based on the first signal.

25. The system as defined in claim 15, wherein the second device is further to store a first count value indicative of a first quantity of shoppers detected as traveling in a first direction and a second count value indicative of a second quantity of shoppers detected as traveling in a second direction.

26. The system as defined in claim 15, wherein the third device is further to determine whether the second signal includes a code matching a start code value.

27. The system as defined in claim 15, wherein the third device is mounted to at least one of a shopping cart or a shopping basket.