MOVING BODY POSITIONING DEVICE

• US 20120237086A1
• Filed: 12/03/2010
• Published: 09/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/03/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Government of Japan)
• Original Assignee: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Government of Japan)
• Inventors: Kourogi, Masakatsu, Kurata, Takeshi, Ishikawa, Tomoya
• Granted Patent: US 8,983,124 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/20 Instruments for performing navigational calculations G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 11/12 using electromagnetic waves other than radio waves
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/25 Recognition of walking or running movements, e.g. gait recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/005 including pedestrian guidance indicator

Abstract

Provided is a moving body positioning device serving as an essential element for monitoring and tracing a moving body, which moving body positioning device uses an external monitoring camera.

The moving body positioning device includes a self-contained sensor group that outputs a motion velocity vector of a moving body with use of an acceleration sensor provided in the moving body, a motion velocity vector estimation processing device that measures a motion velocity vector in accordance with the output of the self-contained sensor group and outputs an output sequence of the motion velocity vector together with a measured time, a monitoring camera for externally image capturing the moving body, an image analysis processing device that analyzes the image of the monitoring camera to measure a position of feet of the moving body in the image, measures a motion velocity vector at the position of the feet, and outputs an output sequence of the motion velocity vector together with a measured time, and a motion velocity vector collation processing device that collates the output sequence of the motion velocity vector estimation processing device with the output sequence of the image analysis processing device and outputs its collation result as a TRUE or a FALSE signal.

Claims

1. A moving body positioning device, comprising:

an internal observation device provided to a moving body, to measure and output a motion of the moving body;

an internal observation data processing device that estimates a motion of the moving body based on the output from the internal observation device;

an external observation device that observes motion of a plurality of moving bodies;

an external observation data processing device that estimates a motion of the moving body from an observation result by the external observation device; and

a collation processing device that collates an output from the internal observation data processing device with that of the external observation data processing device, and outputs its collation result as a TRUE signal or a FALSE signal.

2. The moving body positioning device recited in claim 1, wherein

the internal observation device includes a self-contained sensor group that outputs a motion velocity vector of the moving body with use of an acceleration sensor provided in the moving body,

the internal observation data processing device is a motion velocity vector estimation processing device that measures a motion velocity vector based on an output of the self-contained sensor group, and outputs an output sequence of the motion velocity vector together with a measured time,

the external observation device includes a monitoring camera for externally image capturing the moving bodies,

the external observation data processing device analyzes an image of the monitoring camera to measure a position of feet of the moving body in the image to measure a motion velocity vector of that position of the feet, and outputs an output sequence of the motion velocity vector together with a measured time, and

the collation processing device is a motion velocity vector collation processing device that collates the output sequence of the motion velocity vector estimation processing device with the output sequence of the image analysis processing device, and outputs its collation result as a TRUE signal or a FALSE signal.

3. The moving body positioning device recited in claim 1, wherein

the internal observation device includes a self-contained sensor group that outputs a motion vector of the moving body, the motion vector being obtained by integrating a motion velocity vector with use of an acceleration sensor provided in the moving body,

the internal observation data processing device is a motion vector estimation processing device that measures a motion vector based on an output of the self-contained sensor group and outputs an output sequence of the motion vector together with a measured time,

the external observation device includes a monitoring camera for externally image capturing the moving bodies,

the external observation data processing device is an image analysis processing device that analyzes an image of the monitoring camera to measure a position of feet of the moving body in the image to measure a motion vector of that position of the feet, and outputs an output sequence of the motion vector together with a measured time, and

the collation processing device is a motion velocity vector collation processing device that collates the output sequence of the motion vector estimation processing device with the output sequence of the image analysis processing device, and outputs its collation result as a TRUE signal or a FALSE signal.

4. The moving body positioning device recited in claim 1, wherein

the internal observation device includes a self-contained sensor group that outputs a motion vector of the moving body, the motion vector being obtained by integrating a motion velocity vector with use of an acceleration sensor provided in the moving body,

the internal observation data processing device is a self-contained sensor base motion identification processing device that identifies a movement kind of the moving body in accordance with an output of the self-contained sensor group, and outputs an identification result together with a measured time,

the external observation device includes a monitoring camera for externally image capturing the moving bodies,

the external observation data processing device is an image analysis processing device that analyzes an image of the monitoring camera to identify the movement kind of the moving body in the image and outputs its identification result together with a measured time, and

the collation processing device is a movement kind collation processing device that collates the output of the self-contained sensor base motion identification processing device with the output of the image analysis processing device, and outputs its collation result as a TRUE signal or a FALSE signal.

5. The moving body positioning device recited in claim 2, wherein

when the collation processing device collates the output sequence from the internal observation data processing device with the output sequence from the external observation data processing device, the collation processing device determines a weighting factor in accordance with a size of an area of a unit pixel of the image of the monitoring camera projected on a floor surface at the position of the feet of the moving body estimated from the image of the monitoring camera, to carry out the collation process.

6. The moving body positioning device recited in claim 5, wherein

in the collation process, the weighting factor is made smaller as the area of the unit pixel is projected larger, and the weighting factor is made larger as the area of the unit pixel is projected smaller.

7. The moving body positioning device recited in claim 2, further comprising:

a position correction signal output device,

when the collation processing device outputs the TRUE signal, the position correction signal output device outputting a signal that corrects a positional coordinate of the moving body to a position of the moving body wearing the self-contained sensor group, the positional coordinate being outputted from the external observation data processing device.

8. The moving body positioning device recited in claim 2, further comprising:

a walking parameter estimation processing device,

the internal observation data processing device correcting and outputting the output sequence of the motion velocity vector in accordance with an individual difference parameter set in advance, and

when the collation processing device outputs the TRUE signal, the walking parameter estimation processing device resetting the individual difference parameter in the internal observation data processing device with use of pair information of time series data of a collated motion velocity vector and an output sequence of sensor data of the self-contained sensor.

9. The moving body positioning device recited in claim 2, further comprising:

an identification information storage/display device that stores and displays identification information identifying the moving body,

when the collation processing device outputs the TRUE signal, the identification information storage/display device storing and displaying, as information indicative of the moving body in the image of the monitoring camera, the identification information of a moving body that wears the self-contained sensor, and

when the collation processing device outputs the FALSE signal, the identification information storage/display device storing and displaying, as information indicative of the moving body in the image of the monitoring camera, the identification information indicating that no self-contained sensor is worn.