Indirect Monitoring of Device Usage and Activities

• US 20110224950A1
• Filed: 03/16/2011
• Published: 09/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Reality Analytics, Inc. (Renesas Electronics Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Jeffrey M Sieracki
• Inventors: Sieracki, Jeffrey M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,407,028 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/189
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/00 Speech or voice analysis techniques not restricted to a single one of groups G10L15/00 - G10L21/00 muting semiconductor-based amplifiers when some special characteristics of a signal are sensed by a speech detector, e.g. sensing when no signal is present, H03G3/34

Abstract

Signal characteristics, or signatures, defined by one or more forms of energy being transferred during the commission of an activity are captured in dimensionally-reduced numerical sequences. Dimensionality reduction is achieved such that reduced data acquired during a detection phase can be directly compared with such reduced data produced during system training. Activities, events, human identities and so on can be identified through such direct comparison. Dimensionality reduction, such as through sparse approximation or simultaneous sparse approximation, may produce combinations of scaled prototype functions. Such combinations or their parametric representations compactly describe the signal characteristics for purposes of discovering new activity signatures, of extracting test signals from a set of measurements and of comparing sets for purposes of detection and classification.

Claims

1. A monitoring apparatus to monitor a region of interest for activity, the apparatus comprising:

a plurality of sensor channels to produce numerical sequences proportional to energy of at least two energy modalities transferred to respective sensors thereof during commission of an activity; and

a signature detector to determine whether a known activity is committed by matching dimensionally-reduced representations of the numerical sequences with dimensionally-reduced representations of known numerical sequences containing signal characteristics defined by energy transference in the commission of the known activity, and to provide an indication of the known activity upon positive determination of the match.

2. The apparatus as recited in claim 1, wherein the signature detector includes a dimensionality reduction processor to generate the dimensionally-reduced representations of the numerical sequences as combinations of scaled prototype functions and to construct therefrom representation data structures to include an indication of the respective combinations.

3. The apparatus as recited in claim 2, wherein the signature detector includes:

a database of signature data structures, each including an indication of the combinations of scaled prototype functions representing the known numerical sequences; and

a similarity processor to determine a similarity measure between the combinations of scaled prototype functions indicated in the representation data structures and the combinations of scaled prototype functions indicated in the signature data structures such that the positive determination of the match is indicated by the similarity measure meeting predetermined similarity criteria.

4. The apparatus as recited in claim 3, wherein the signature data structures include respective indications of multiple sets of combinations of scaled prototype functions representing respective known numerical sequences defined by the energy transference during the known activity, the similarity processor indicating the match upon the similarity measure between the combinations of scaled prototype functions indicated in the representation data structures and the sets of the combinations of scaled prototype functions indicated in the signature data structures meeting the predetermined similarity criteria.

5. The apparatus as recited in claim 4, wherein the dimensionality reduction processor generates the combinations of scaled prototype functions as sets thereof, each of the combinations in the set being generated from the numerical sequences originating from the sensor channels of at least two distinct energy modalities associated with the commission of the activity.

6. The apparatus as recited in claim 5, wherein the dimensionality reduction processor generates at least one common dimensionally-reduced representation from the numerical sequences originating from the sensor channels of the at least two distinct energy modalities.

7. The apparatus as recited in claim 6, wherein the dimensionality reduction processor is a machine implementation of a simultaneous sparse approximator.

8. The apparatus as recited in claim 2, wherein the dimensionality reduction processor generates at least one common dimensionally-reduced representation from the numerical sequences originating from a plurality of sensor channels of a common energy modality.

9. The apparatus as recited in claim 8, wherein the dimensionality reduction processor is a machine implementation of a simultaneous sparse approximator.

10. The apparatus as recited in claim 1, wherein the signature detector includes a classification refinement processor to revise the dimensionally-reduced representation of the known numerical sequences in the signature data structures with the signal characteristics contained in the dimensionally-reduced representations of the numerical sequences in the representation data structures upon predetermined revision criteria being met.

11. The apparatus as recited in claim 10, wherein the revision criteria include the positive determination of the match.

12. The apparatus as recited in claim 10, wherein the revision criteria include a positive determination that the similarity measure is within a predetermined range.

16. The apparatus as recited in claim 11, further comprising:

a housing to contain the sensors and the processor.

13. A monitoring apparatus to monitor a region of interest for activity, the apparatus comprising:

a plurality of sensors to produce signals proportional to energy transferred in committing an activity;

a plurality of sensor channels respectively coupled to the sensors to produce numerical sequences proportional to the energy; and

a processor to determine whether a known activity is committed by signal features in the numerical sequences with the signal features of known numerical sequences containing signal characteristics defined by the energy transference in the commission of the known activity, and to provide an indication of the known activity upon positive determination of the match.

14. The apparatus as recited in claim 13, wherein the processor executes a machine implementation of a sparse approximation process to produce dimensionally-reduced representations of the numerical sequences.

15. The apparatus as recited in claim 13, wherein the processor executes a machine implementation of a simultaneous sparse approximation process to produce dimensionally-reduced representations of the numerical sequences.

17. A machine-implemented method for monitoring a region of interest for activity, the method comprising:

forming a set of signature representations as dimensionally-reduced numerical sequences containing signature signal characteristics defined by energy transference in committing a known activity;

converting energy transferred during commission of an activity into electrical signals having activity signal characteristics;

converting the electrical signals into numerical sequences that represent the activity signal characteristics;

dimensionally-reducing the numerical sequences into representations thereof;

comparing directly the representations with the signature representations to obtain a similarity measure between the activity signal characteristics and the signature signal characteristics; and

reporting the activity as the known activity upon a positive determination that the similarity measure meets a predetermined criterion.