Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – Specific condition
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-30
2002-01-15
Tweel, John (Department: 2632)
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
Specific condition
C340S545100, C187S392000, C187S317000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06339375
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a monitoring apparatus and a monitoring method for monitoring an interior of a closed space for passengers which has an opening/closing door and, more particularly, to an image monitoring apparatus and an image monitoring method that makes it possible to detect a confined passenger or a passenger in need of care, or an equipment failure in, for example, a car of an unattended elevator, just from an image supplied by a monitoring camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
An elevator according to the prior art that is fully equipped with various dedicated sensors for primarily monitoring an open or closed state of a door is able to monitor a variety of states by combining diverse sensor outputs. Currently, however, there are many elevators not equipped with dedicated sensors in the market.
FIG. 13
is a block diagram illustrating another prior art disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-26611. The block diagram shows a conventional monitoring technology described under a title “APPARATUS FOR DETECTING OBJECT IN ELEVATOR CAR.”
FIG. 14
is a schematic diagram of the prior art of FIG.
13
. The technology described in the literature is for accurately detecting the number of passengers in a car without causing differences in heights of detection objects to deteriorate detection accuracy while preventing erroneous detection at the same time.
Referring to
FIG. 13
, the apparatus for detecting an object in a car is constituted by an image processor
2001
, a television camera
2002
, and a passenger detector
2005
. An output of the apparatus is transmitted to an elevator controller
2003
, and used for carrying out elevator control.
A correction coefficient calculating unit
2011
calculates a correction coefficient for an area of an image of a detected passenger or the like based on a height of an image of a detection object at a particular position. A passenger detecting unit
2010
uses the correction coefficient calculated by the correction coefficient calculating unit
2011
, corrects the area of the image of the detected passenger or the like, converts the area into a number of passengers, and outputs the number of passengers. Thus, the height of an object is detected, and a correction coefficient based on the detected height is calculated to correct an area of the object. Hence, the number of passengers in a car can be accurately detected.
There is still another prior art.
FIG. 15
is a block diagram showing another conventional monitoring technology described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 5-6494 titled “APPARATUS FOR MEASURING MOVING OBJECT AND TRAFFIC FLOW MEASURING IMAGE PROCESSOR.”
FIG. 16
schematically shows a monitoring camera installed in an elevator car.
The technology shown in
FIG. 15
relates to the apparatus for measuring a moving object for detecting status amounts of a moving object and, more particularly, to a traffic flow measuring image processor for detecting status amounts, such as traffic amount, speed, car-to-car distance, density, occupancy, congestion distance, and time required for passing through a section, in an automobile traffic flow.
Referring to
FIG. 15
, a vehicle is imaged by a TV camera
3001
controlled by a TV camera control circuit
3002
, and the image data is stored in a frame memory
3002
. A presence area of the vehicle along a moving path of the vehicle is preset, based on the image data, by a presence area defining circuit
3009
. A vertical line detecting circuit
3010
extracts data indicating the vehicle from the image data in the presence area, and the data indicating the vehicle is successively stored in a data time series storage circuit
3012
in time series at a predetermined cycle. Based on the data time series image obtained by the data time series storage circuit
3012
, a vehicle determining circuit
3017
determines whether the vehicle moving in the preset presence area is present, and, if so, then a vehicle information measuring circuit
3018
measures a state of the determined vehicle.
Furthermore, according to the prior art shown in
FIG. 13
, even when the aforesaid dedicated sensors are provided, confinement is presumed by a combination of ON and OFF of sensor signals. Therefore, the prior art shown in
FIG. 13
has been presenting a problem in that presence of a passenger in a car does not always coincide with presence of a passenger indicated by a sensor signal because, if a passenger presses a button of a destination floor provided in a car, then it automatically means that there is a passenger in the car.
The problem occurs especially when a child is in a car alone or if a passenger maliciously confines himself in the car.
Although the prior art of
FIG. 15
is not intended for detecting a passenger confined in an elevator, if the art shown in
FIG. 15
is used to create a confinement detecting apparatus, then a monitoring camera device as shown in
FIG. 16
will be installed. The prior art shown in
FIG. 15
has also been posing a problem in that a confined passenger cannot be detected just from an image, requiring a dedicated sensor be separately provided, as in the case of an elevator not equipped with a dedicated sensor.
More specifically, in the prior art of
FIG. 15
, separately existing objects at a substantially constant speed in a view can be recognized. It has been difficult, however, to recognize moving objects in a picture supplied by a monitoring camera showing a mixture of a moving door and moving passengers as in the case of, for example, a picture provided by a camera installed in an elevator car.
Therefore, the prior art of
FIG. 15
has been posing a problem in that it is difficult to detect confined passengers from a picture where different movements exist if the prior art is applied as it is for detecting confined passengers, although the prior art of
FIG. 15
is not intended for detecting confined passengers.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, the present invention has been made with a view toward solving the problems described above, and it is an object thereof to provide an image monitoring apparatus and an image monitoring method that allow a confined passenger to be detected just from an image without using a dedicated sensor.
To this end, according to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image monitoring apparatus for monitoring an interior of a closed space having an opening/closing door, including: image acquiring means provided in the space so that it faces the door to acquire an image of an interior of the space including the door; door area defining means for setting a predetermined door defining area for the image; door extracting means for extracting a door image from the door defining area of the image; door open/closed state determining means for determining whether the door is open or closed based on an output of the door extracting means; passenger area defining means for setting a predetermined passenger defining area for the image; passenger extracting means for extracting a passenger image from the passenger defining area of the image; passenger presence determining means for determining whether a passenger is present or not based on an output of the passenger extracting means; integrating means for determining whether a passenger is confined or not by integrating judgements of the door open/closed state determining means and the passenger presence determining means; and alarming means for issuing an alarm to outside if a passenger has been confined, based on an output of the integrating means.
In a preferred form, the door extracting means has: door highlighting means for highlighting a position of an edge of a door in the door defining area; data time series storing means for successively storing in time series door edge position data emphasizing the position of the edge of the door; and door operation extracting means for extracting an opening/closing operation of the door from the time series data, and the door open/close
Hashimoto Manabu
Hirata Nami
Narasada Hiroshi
Sumi Kazuhiko
Leydig , Voit & Mayer, Ltd.
Mitsubishi Denki & Kabushiki Kaisha
Tweel John
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