Education and demonstration – Psychology
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-21
2004-09-28
Rovnak, John Edmund (Department: 3714)
Education and demonstration
Psychology
C702S188000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06796799
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a behavior determining apparatus for determining whether or not a pattern regarding behaviors of a given subject person and an actual behavior of that person are substantially identical; a behavior determining apparatus for determining whether or not the pattern of actions of a given device and an actual action of that device are substantially identical; a care system for accurately specifying the behavior of a subject person and taking care of that person; a care residence equipped with that care system; a measuring method, pertaining to the measurement of actions and behaviors in varying states of humans, animals, machines or the like, for measuring those actions and behaviors; an apparatus using that method; and a system including that apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Behavior determining apparatuses according to the prior art include, for instance, an apparatus for determining the behaviors of senior citizens living alone. To cite a specific example, there is an apparatus that keeps on recording for a month or any other prescribed period how many times, both cumulatively and per unit length of time, the “pour” button of an automatic thermos used in the residence of a senior citizen living alone is pressed; records the average daily frequency of button pressing as the pattern of the resident's use of the thermos; and, after these preliminary steps, detects his or her actions to pour hot water from the thermos; compares the frequency of the actions with the recorded pattern to determine whether or not the actual frequency is substantially identical with the pattern observed in advance. The apparatus determines the senior citizen's behaviors and, if for instance he or she does not use the thermos when its use is expected according to the pattern observed in advance, issues to a management center, which is connected to the behavior determining apparatus, an alarm that he or she may be ill. Another behavior determining apparatus according to the prior art, as the foregoing apparatus compares the actual use of the thermos with the pattern observed in advance, detects the use of city water with a sensor fitted to the water discharge meter and determines the behaviors of the senior citizen living alone by comparing the detected act of actual water consumption and a pattern observed in advance and determining whether or not the detected act and the pre-observed pattern are substantially identical.
Furthermore, based on a similar principle to the idea underlying the apparatuses which compare and determine the presence or absence of substantial identity between the actions of a device, such as an automatic thermos, and the pre-observed pattern of its use, another behavior determining apparatus directly detects human behaviors, instead of the actions of a device, and determines whether or not the subject person's behaviors are substantially identical with a pre-recorded pattern of his or her behaviors. The means of directly detecting the person's behavior may be, for instance, a pyro-electric type infrared ray sensor installed on the ceiling of a room or a passage the person frequently passes. If the sensor detects his or her passage frequently enough, the person can be assumed to be living without trouble.
In recent years, with the aging of the national population, care of senior citizens has become a matter of grave social concern, with particular emphasis on those suffering from senile dementia or manifesting wandering symptoms, and the above-described and various other techniques have been proposed to address this issue. It is considered very useful in taking care of these senior citizens to have some means for keeping track of the behaviors of each and, if anything wrong is found, notifying the person concerned and someone else responsible for his or her care. Apart from senior citizens, if, for instance, behavioral patterns are specified by measuring and analyzing human behaviors, it will become possible to control illumination, air conditioning and so forth and thereby to make their operation more pleasant and safer for residents.
Furthermore, the effectiveness of measurement is not limited to human behaviors, but the behaviors of animals or machines can also be measured usefully. It could help reveal some unknown ecological aspects of animals, or measurement of states and actions of machines could contribute to their more efficient and safer operation and accordingly to greater efficiency of productive activities as a whole.
In understanding the behaviors of a human body or a inanimate object, it is essential to determine “who (or what)” does “what” and “where,” because the individual or the object should be specified, its position in the room pinpointed, and its action and attitude detected.
An individual or a specific object may be specified by RF-ID or visual perception of CCD images. The RF-ID is a system whereby specifying information from a tag (also called a transponder; hereinafter to be referred to as a tag throughout) fitted to a moving body such as a human body or an inanimate one is received by an antenna (also called a reader; hereinafter to be referred to as an antenna throughout) as an electric wave of a specific frequency, and the object is thereby specified automatically.
This system can be broadly classified into two types by the reach of tag reading. One is a short-range type using a low frequency, for which the distance between the tag and the antenna is around 50 cm or less. The usual way of using this type is to hold the tag closely over the antenna or to sew the tag into a cuff of the slacks so that information from the tag can be read by an antenna installed on the floor. The other is a long-range type using a microwave, for which the distance between the tag and the antenna is more than 1 m. In this arrangement, the tag is mounted on a part of the human body or the object, and when the bearer of the tag passes near the antenna, information from the tag can be read by the antenna without being noticed by the bearer of the tag.
On the other hand, by the method of visual perception of CCD images, a CCD camera shoots a human or an inanimate body passing an entrance/exit, extracts characteristic quantities such as the personal face or the shape of or any mark on the object by visual perception and, by comparing them with inherent characteristic quantities registered in advance, the person or the specific object is specified.
Methods for specifying the position of a human or an inanimate body indoors include extraction from CCD images and extracting from temperature distribution information obtained with a two-dimensional infrared sensor. A method proposed for use in a very large building is to determine an approximate position from the intensities of electric waves from a plurality of base stations, using the personal handyphone system (PHS).
Older methods proposed for detecting actions and/or attitudes include ones by which a static condition and a dynamic condition are distinguished from each other by using a passometer, a mercury switch or the like. Recently proposed methods include, as various acceleration sensors and gyro sensors (angular acceleration sensors) have been improved in performance, ones based on the detection of the walking condition, the inclination of the body, the walking direction and/or other factors using these improved sensors.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Object of the Invention
However, since conventional behavior determining apparatuses relying on the actions of an automatic thermos or a water discharge meter can hardly keep track of everyday life activities of the subject person on a real time basis. Therefore, even if something wrong occurs with the subject person, it will take some time, a full day for instance, until that unusual state is specified as such.
Furthermore, because a pyro-electric infrared ray sensor would react to, for instance, the fluttering of a curtain when the window is opened or the mov
Hattori Akiyoshi
Inoue Shigeyuki
Morinaka Katsuya
Tanaka Shinji
Yoshiike Nobuyuki
Rovnak John Edmund
Smith , Gambrell & Russell, LLP
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