Automatic system for monitoring person requiring care and his/her caretaker

• US 6,968,294 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2001
• Issued: 11/22/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Trajkovic, Miroslav, Gutta, Srinivas, Cohen-Solal, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoff, Marc S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): KIM, PAUL L
• Application Number:
  US09/808,848
• Publication Number:
  US 20020169583A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,713 Days
• Field of Search: 702/122, 702/150, 702/188, 704/200, 704/202, 600/595, 710/18
• US Class Current: 702/188
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2503/06 Children, e.g. for attention deficit diagnosis
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0013 Medical image data A61B1/00011, A61B6/56, A61B8/56 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/113 occurring during breathing
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/167 Personality evaluation
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7264 Classification of physiological signals or data, e.g. using neural networks, statistical classifiers, expert systems or fuzzy systems neural networks per se G06N3/00; expert systems per se G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7267 involving training the classification device
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0423 detecting deviation from an expected pattern of behaviour or schedule
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0453 worn on the body to detect health condition by physiological monitoring, e.g. electrocardiogram, temperature, breathing detecting, measuring or recording for diagnostic purposes A61B5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0476 Cameras to detect unsafe condition, e.g. video cameras
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

A monitoring system for an infant, child, invalid, or other person requiring care uses computer vision and hearing, and inputs of other modalities, to analyze the status of a caretaker and/or cared-for person and its environment. The conditions are classified as normal or alarm conditions and an informative alarm signal is generated which may include records of the vision audio and other inputs. The system also has the ability to solicit responses from the occupants to stimulate a classifiable input to reduce ambiguity in its state signal.

Claims

1. A monitoring device, comprising:

a controller programmed to receive at least one monitor signal from an environment monitor located in a monitored zone in which a person requiring supervision is located, wherein said at least one monitor signal includes at least one of video and audio data;

said controller being programmed to produce class data by classifying at least one alarm condition in the monitored zone in a class selected from a plurality of available classes, responsive to said at least one monitor signal;

wherein the at least one alarm condition indicates that an event that is threatening to the person has occurred; and

said controller being programmed to generate an alarm signal responsively to said class data and to initiate a transmission of the alarm signal to a remote supervisor, said alarm signal including at least a portion of said at least one monitor signal at least one of immediately prior to and immediately after an incidence of said at least one alarm condition, wherein said controller is programmed to recognize faces and said at least one alarm condition is responsive to at least one of;

(a) a failure to detect a face of the person in the monitored zone, and (b) a presence of an unrecognized face in the monitored zone.

2. A monitoring device as in claim 1, wherein said controller is programmed to solicit an action by an occupant, said at least one monitor signal being responsive to said action by said occupant.

3. A monitoring device as in claim 1, wherein said at least one monitor signal includes a signal from a detector configured to detect a lapse in breathing by said person.

4. A monitoring device as in claim 1, wherein said alarm signal includes at least a portion of said at least one monitor signal immediately prior to and immediately after an incidence of the at least one alarm condition.

5. A monitoring device as in claim 1 wherein said alarm signal includes at least one of an audio signal, text data signal, and a video signal.

6. A monitoring device as in claim 1, wherein:

the transmission comprises an indication of the class to which the at least one alarm condition belongs.

7. A monitoring device as in claim 1, further comprising:

buffering the at least one monitor signal to provide the at least a portion of the at least one monitor signal in the alarm signal.

8. A monitoring device comprising:

a controller programmed to receive at least one monitor signal from an environment monitor located in a monitored zone in which a person requiring supervision is located, wherein said at least one monitor signal includes at least one of video and audio data;

said controller being programmed to produce class data by classifying at least one alarm condition in the monitored zone in a class selected from a plurality of available classes, responsive to said at least one monitor signal;

wherein the at least one alarm condition indicates that an event that is threatening to the person has occurred; and

said controller being programmed to generate an alarm signal responsively to said class data and to initiate a transmission of the alarm signal to a remote supervisor, said alarm signal including at least a portion of said at least one monitor signal at least one of immediately prior to and immediately after an incidence of said at least one alarm condition, wherein said controller is programmed to recognize a speaker'"'"'s voice, and said alarm signal is responsive to at least one of;

(a) a failure to recognize a voice of the person, and (b) a presence of a voice of an unrecognized or unauthorized person.

9. A monitoring system, comprising:

a controller connected to receive at least one signal from at least one sensor for monitoring an environment of a person requiring supervision;

said at least one sensor generating first and second signals responsive to a state of a caretaker of said person and a state of said person, respectively;

said controller being programmed to determine whether to generate a first alarm signal based on whether the state of the caretaker represents a distress event for the person, and to determine whether to generate a second alarm signal based on the state of the person.

10. A monitoring system as in claim 9, wherein said first alarm signal includes a sample of at least one of said first and second signals.

11. A monitoring system as in claim 9, wherein said controller is programmed to generate a message to solicit an action by said caretaker when said first alarm signal is generated.

12. A monitoring system as in claim 9, wherein:

the at least one sensor is positioned according to an expected location of the caretaker relative to the person.

13. A monitoring system as in claim 9, wherein:

said controller generates the first alarm signal when the state of the caretaker is outside a first specified range; and

said controller generates the second alarm signal when the state of the person is outside a second specified range.

14. A monitoring method, comprising the steps of:

monitoring a person requiring supervision by generating a first signal indicative of a status of at least one of the person and an environment of the person;

detecting when a behavior of a second person in the environment, other than said person requiring supervision, represents a distress event for the person requiring supervision so as to require the attention of a remote supervisor; and

transmitting a signal including at least one of audio, video, and text data to said remote supervisor when the step of detecting detects that the behavior of the second person requires the attention of the remote supervisor.

15. A monitoring method as in claim 14, wherein said person requiring supervision is an infant and said step of detecting includes detecting a lapse of breathing of said infant.

16. A monitoring method as in claim 14, wherein said step of detecting includes detecting at least one of an audio signal and video signal and classifying a predefined pattern in said at least one of an audio signal and a video signal.

17. A monitoring method as in claim 14, wherein:

said step of detecting includes at least one of recognizing a face of said person requiring supervision or the second person, classifying a body habitus of said person requiring supervision, classifying a physiognomy of said person requiring supervision, detecting a speed of movement of said person requiring supervision or said second person, detecting a number of persons in an occupied zone in the environment, and recognizing a voice signature; and

said steps of recognizing, classifying, and detecting are automatic machine processes.

18. A monitoring method as in claim 14, wherein said step of detecting includes detecting at least one of a movement or lack thereof and a speech or lack thereof, of at least one of said person and said second person.

19. A monitoring method as in claim 14, wherein:

the signal transmitted to the remote supervisor includes at least a portion of said first signal.