IP Library › Granted Patent US 11,644,363
Granted Patent B2
US 11,644,363 · App. 17/232,551 · Granted May 9, 2023

Thermal data analysis for determining location, trajectory and behavior

Inventors: Honghao Deng (Belmont, CA); Jiani Zeng (Belmont, CA); Ziran Zhang (Fremont, CA); Yan Zhang (Cambridge, MA)
Assignee: BUTLR TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
G01J5/0025G01J5/12G16H20/60G16H40/67A61B5/01A61B5/1118A61B5/16G06F9/541G06F30/13G06Q10/087G07C9/00H04W84/18
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 11,644,363
App. No.
17/232,551
Granted
May 9, 2023
Kind
B2
Abstract

The system is configured to locate, track and/or analyze activities of living beings in an environment. The system does not require the input of personal biometric data. The sensor system detects infrared (IR) energy from a living being moving in an environment, determines a temperature of the living being based on IR energy data of the IR energy, projects the temperature onto a grid having sequential pixels, determines serial changes of the temperature in the sequential pixels and determines a trajectory of the living being based on the serial changes of the temperature in the sequential pixels.

Claims (42)

1. The method comprising:

determining, by a sensor system, a temperature of the living being based on infrared (IR) energy data of IR energy from a living being moving in an environment, wherein the sensor system includes a sensor node of a plurality of sensor nodes;

projecting, by the sensor system, the temperature onto a grid having pixels;

determining, by the sensor system, changes of the temperature in the pixels; and

determining, by the sensor system, a trajectory of the living being based on the changes of the temperature in the pixels.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least a portion of the plurality of sensor nodes are at least one of thermopile sensor nodes, wireless sensor nodes or part of a mesh network.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the pixels are sequential pixels.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the trajectory of the living being is based on serial changes of the temperature in the pixels.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of sensor nodes are associated with a unique number to form a structured network of sensor nodes.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising cross-referencing, by the sensor system, a structured network of the plurality of sensor nodes with an architectural plan, wherein each of the plurality of sensor nodes are associated with a unique number to form the structured network of sensor nodes.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising creating, by the sensor system, a sensor profile for at least a subset of each of the plurality of sensor nodes.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising implementing, by the sensor system, a calibration process for avoiding overlapping temperatures of multiple living beings.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising adjusting, by the sensor system, the temperature of the living being projected onto the grid by compensating for a temperature of the environment.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sensor system further comprises sensor modules, a gateway, a cloud computing module, a database and a user interface.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising tagging, by the sensor system, a sensor node with a product name for a product, wherein the product is located in a field of the sensor node.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining, by the sensor system, occupancy of the environment based on the serial changes of the temperature in the sequential pixels.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising monitoring, by the sensor system, the temperature of the living being in the environment.

14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining, by the sensor system, a moving speed of the living being based on the serial changes of the temperature in the sequential pixels.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining, by the sensor system, calories expended by the living being based on the serial changes of the temperature in the sequential pixels.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the serial changes of the temperature in the sequential pixels comprises:

compressing raw thermal data of the IR energy received by the sensor node to create compressed thermal data;

decompressing the compressed thermal data to create decompressed thermal data;

creating detection data from the decompressed thermal data;

processing the detection data to create post processed detection data;

creating time series detection result data from the post processed detection data;

applying a contextual analytic algorithm to the time series detection result data to create analytics results; and

applying an API service to the analytics results to obtain a visualization of the time series detection result data.

17. The method of claim 1 , further comprising removing, by the sensor system, outliers from the IR energy data.

18. The method of claim 1 , further comprising performing, by the sensor system, at least one of edge compression or edge computing to the IR energy data.

19. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a sensor system, cause the sensor system to perform operations comprising:

determining, by the sensor system, a temperature of the living being based on infrared (IR) energy data of IR energy from a living being moving in an environment, wherein the sensor system includes a sensor node of a plurality of sensor nodes;

projecting, by the sensor system, the temperature onto a grid having pixels;

determining, by the sensor system, changes of the temperature in the pixels; and

determining, by the sensor system, a trajectory of the living being based on the changes of the temperature in the pixels.

20. A sensor system comprising:

a processor; and

a tangible, non-transitory memory configured to communicate with the processor,

the tangible, non-transitory memory having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

determining, by the sensor system, a temperature of the living being based on infrared (IR) energy data of IR energy from a living being moving in an environment, wherein the sensor system includes a sensor node of a plurality of sensor nodes;

projecting, by the sensor system, the temperature onto a grid having pixels;

determining, by the sensor system, changes of the temperature in the pixels; and

determining, by the sensor system, a trajectory of the living being based on the changes of the temperature in the pixels.

Assignments (1)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Apr 16, 2021
From: DENG, HONGHAO; ZHANG, ZIRAN; ZHANG, YAN; ZENG, JIANI; SOTIRIOU, IOANNA
To: BUTLR TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Reel/Frame 055943/0404 →
Continuity (3)
Continuation 17178784 · Feb 18, 2021
Provisional Application 62986442 · Mar 6, 2020
Related Publication 20210278279A1 · Sep 9, 2021
Cited By (1)
US 12,355,658