Tracking of members within a group

• US 10,360,599 B2
• Filed: 08/30/2017
• Issued: 07/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NCR Voyix Corporation
• Original Assignee: NCR Corporation
• Inventors: Costello, Christopher John
• Primary Examiner(s): Woldemariam, Aklilu K
• Application Number:
  US15/691,370
• Publication Number:
  US 20190066169A1
• Time in Patent Office: 692 Days
• Field of Search: 382103, 340936, 340937, 701 23, 701 28, 701119, 701300
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/18 involving self-service terminals [SST], vending machines, kiosks or multimedia terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/01 Customer relationship services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0281 Customer communication at a business location, e.g. providing product or service information, consulting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

A group of consumers are identified before the members of the group enter a frictionless store on an outside premises of the store. In an embodiment, a registered account holder for a member of the group is passed to an indoor tracking system of the frictionless store when the group enters the store. In an embodiment, attributes of a potential group of consumers is passed to an indoor tracking system when the group enters the store without a registered account being identified.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

identifying, by executable instructions that are executed by a hardware processor of a server from a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, a group of consumers for a frictionless store as a plurality of individuals on an outdoor premises associated with a store before any individual of the group enters an inside of the store by processing at least some video tracking and imaging tracking processing that captures images of the individuals in proximity to one another, assigns the individuals to the group, extracts attributes from the images associated with the group as a whole and each individual of the group, and tracks the consumers as belonging to the group through the images using the attributes before the individuals enter the store, wherein at least a portion of a store includes a frictionless store that allows customers to pick specific items from the frictionless store without scanning the specific items for a checkout at the store, and wherein the attributes include for each individual include;

a height of that individual, a color of apparel worn by that individual, facial features of that individual, sex of that individual, and ethnicity of that individual; and

providing, by the executable instructions, the attributes that define the group and each individual to an indoor tracking system associated with the frictionless store when at least one individual of the group is detected as entering the inside of the store through the images associated with the outdoor premises, wherein the indoor tracking system picks up tracking of the at least one individual and the group as a whole by analyzing other images received by the indoor tracking system using the attributes and tracking, by the indoor tracking system associations between the group, the individuals, and the specific items through the other images.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying further includes identifying a registered account for a specific member of the group and linking the group to the registered account.

3. The method of claim 2, where identifying the registered account further includes receiving identifying information for the specific member from a wireless transceiver or sensor that is communicated from a vehicle or mobile device of the specific member in a parking lot of the outdoor premises.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein identifying the registered account further includes identifying registered vehicle image attributes for a vehicle of the specific member one the outdoor premises through video cameras situated on the outdoor premises and image processing algorithms.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying further includes identifying the group through video cameras situated on the outdoor premises when the individuals exit a vehicle on the outdoor premises.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying further includes identifying the group through video cameras situated on the outdoor premises and people tracking algorithms based on proximity of the individuals to one another and detected interactions between the individuals on the outdoor premises.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein providing further includes providing a total number of individuals in the group and individual video tracking attributes for each individual to the indoor tracking system.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein providing further includes, assigning, by the indoor tracking system, a registered account to a specific individual of the group when the specific individual checks-in with an interface of the indoor tracking system.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising, providing, by the executable instructions, a notification to the specific individual requesting that specific individual confirm or opt-out of the group.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising, tracking, by the indoor tracking system, items picked up by each of the individuals while within the frictionless store.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising, presenting on a self-checkout station to a first individual that performs a checkout on the self-checkout station an option to pay for all items of the group or to pay for just those items picked up by the first individual.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprising, tracking, by the executable instructions, other items picked up or obtained by each of the individuals in an outdoor area associated with the frictionless store.

13. A method, comprising:

tracking, by executable instructions that are executed on a hardware processor of a server from a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, image attributes of members of a potential group detected on an outdoor premises of a store by capturing images from cameras and analyzing initial images of the group on the outdoor premises and extracting the image attributes from the initial images for the potential group as a whole and for each member assigned to the group, wherein at least a portion of a store includes a frictionless store that allows customers to pick specific items from the frictionless store without scanning the specific items for a checkout at the store, and wherein the image attributes include for each member include;

a height of that member, a color of apparel worn by that member, facial features of that member, sex of that member, and ethnicity of that member;

providing, by the executable instructions, the image attributes for tracking the group and the members to an indoor tracking system when the group and the members are detected as moving from the outdoor premises to an inside of the store;

monitoring, by the executable instructions, any items acquired through image processing of other images captured for the group and the members by the indoor tracking system using the image attributes and sensor processing by the members in both indoor and outdoor areas associated with the store and the frictionless store; and

permitting, by the executable instructions, one member to elect to checkout from the store through payment for all the items acquired by the members by identification of the one member from the other images using the attributes.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising, processing the executable instructions with the cameras that are located at a fuel station in both the indoor and outdoor areas.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein tracking further includes identifying through the image attributes and/or wireless/sensor communications with a device of the one member a registered account of the one member with the frictionless store without any affirmative action being required of the one member.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein permitting further includes permitting the one member to opt out of the potential group and checkout with just those items acquired by the one member in the indoor and/or outdoor areas.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein permitting further includes tracking each of remaining members individually for those items acquired by each of the remaining members ensuring that each of the remaining members perform a checkout at a self-service checkout for their items before existing the frictionless store.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the executable instructions when executed by the hardware processor further cause the processor to:

identify the specific member based on registered image attributes associated with a vehicle of the specific member that is linked to the registered account or based on wireless information communicated from a device associated with the vehicle or a mobile device of the specific member.

18. A system, comprising:

a processor;

a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having executable instructions;

the executable instructions when executed by the processor cause the processor to;

identify members of a group on an outdoor premises of a store by analyzing images captured by cameras and extract attributes for the group from the initial images, wherein the attributes include for each member include;

a height of that member, a color of apparel worn by that member, facial features of that member, sex of that member, and ethnicity of that member;

link a registered account to a specific member of the group identified from the images using the attributes; and

provide the attributes for each member of the group and the group as a whole along with the registered account to an indoor tracking system of the store that tracks each member of the group from other images captured by cameras associated with the indoor tracking system, wherein at least a portion of a store includes a frictionless store that allows customers to pick specific items from the frictionless store without scanning the specific items for a checkout at the store.