JP3026380B2 - Attitude discrimination device and its applied equipment - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus for judging a posture of a person in a room from two-dimensional image data in a room and an applied device thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, in an air conditioner, the comfort of humans in a room can be enhanced by automatically controlling the temperature, the air volume and the air direction. In this case, air conditioning that matches the human life scene is detected by detecting the posture of the indoor person, that is, whether the person is standing and working, sitting and relaxing, sleeping, and the like. Driving becomes possible. Such human posture information can also be used for a fan heater or the like that controls the temperature in a room with warm air. In the present invention, such a fan heater and the like are also included in the concept of the air conditioner.

Conventionally, control of an air conditioner using such posture information of a person has not been performed.
Conventional air conditioners also detect an area of a human-like portion from two-dimensional thermal image data detected by a pyroelectric infrared sensor and determine whether or not the area is a human based on the shape of the area. When intentionally obtaining human posture information from such human information, a posture determination device as shown in FIG. 7 is used.

FIG. 7 shows a configuration of a conventional attitude determination device. 7, reference numeral 60 denotes an image input unit for detecting a two-dimensional infrared thermal image, 600 denotes thermal image data, 6
1 is thermal image data storage means, 601 is stored thermal image data, 62 is human area detecting means, 602 is line image data indicating a human area, 63 is area shape discriminating means, 6
Numerals 03 and 605 denote shape signals indicating the shape, numeral 64 denotes a person discriminating means for discriminating a person, numeral 604 denotes a region signal discriminated as a person, and numeral 65 denotes a person posture discriminating means.

[0005] Next, the operation of the above-described conventional attitude determination device will be described. The thermal image data 600 detected by the image input unit 60 is stored in the thermal image data storage unit 61. The stored thermal image data 601 is subjected to edge and line detection processing by the human area detection means 62, and is converted into line image data 602 indicating a human-like area. In the line image data 602, the shape of the region formed by the line image is determined by the shape determining unit 63, and whether or not a person is detected by the human determining unit 64 based on the shape signal 603. Based on the region signal 604 determined to be a human and the shape signal 605 of the region, the human posture determining means 65 determines the human posture.

[0006]

However, in the above-described conventional posture discriminating apparatus, when the shape of a region cannot be accurately recognized from two-dimensional infrared thermal image data, a good discrimination result can be obtained even for a human posture. It is difficult to ask.
This is why human posture information has not been used in air conditioners in the past.

The present invention has been made in view of such a conventional problem,
An object of the present invention is to provide an excellent posture discriminating apparatus capable of easily and accurately detecting posture information of a person in a room, and an applied device using the same.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides image input means for detecting two-dimensional image information in a room, and image data for storing image data obtained from the image input means. Storage means, a human area detecting means for detecting a human area on the image data, a shape determining means for determining the shape of the human area, and detecting a human motion from the image data stored in the image data storing means The apparatus is provided with a motion detecting means, and a posture determining means for determining a human posture from a shape signal from the shape determining means and a motion signal from the motion detecting means.

[0009]

According to the present invention, with the above arrangement, a rough human posture is determined by determining a human region and its shape from two-dimensional image data, and a motion that is likely to be erroneous is detected from continuous image data. Then, by correcting the posture as a result of the determination, the human posture can be accurately and easily detected. In addition, by applying such human posture information to control of devices such as an air conditioner, more comfortable automatic driving can be performed.

[0010]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a posture determination device according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes an entire posture determination device, 10 denotes image input means for detecting two-dimensional thermal image information in a room, 11 denotes thermal image data storage means for storing obtained thermal image data, and 12 denotes thermal image data. A human area detecting means for detecting a human area on the image data; 13 a shape determining means for determining the shape of the human area; 14 a motion detecting means for detecting human motion from stored thermal image data;
Reference numeral 5 denotes a posture determining means for determining the posture of the human based on the obtained human region shape signal and motion signal.

The image input means 10 is assumed to be installed in a general household room, and it is assumed that the entire floor surface of the room can be read in image data. Further, the image input means 10
In the case of a camera of the image pickup tube type or a CCD camera using a solid-state device as input means of a visible image, two-dimensional image data indicates luminance information of an object, and in the case of an infrared image input apparatus, two-dimensional indicating temperature of the object Thermal image information. In the present embodiment, an image input device using a pyroelectric infrared sensor is used as the image input means 10.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described. The two-dimensional thermal image data 100 read by the image input unit 10 is temporarily stored in the thermal image data storage unit 11. The thermal image data 101 stored in the thermal image data storage means 11 is not one piece of image information, but can be used for continuous image storage with respect to the shooting time, because it is also used for motion detection as described later. I do. The stored thermal image data 101 is input to the human area detecting means 12, and detects a human area based on the temperature value indicated by each pixel. For example, if there is no heat source other than a human in a room and the temperature of the room other than a human is 25 ° C. or less, the temperature becomes 26 ° C. to 3 ° C.
By detecting an area at a temperature of 4 ° C., a human area can be detected. It should be noted that the region cutout temperature can be calculated by a method of calculating from the histogram distribution of the pixel values of the thermal image data 101 or by using both the edge detection and the cutout temperature as shown in FIG.

Signal 102 indicating detected human area
Is the shape signal 10 by the shape discriminating means 13 of the human area.
3 and is passed to the posture determining means 15. The posture determining means 15 determines the posture of a person in the room based on the motion signal 105 calculated by the motion detecting means 14 from the shape signal 103 of the area and the thermal image data 104 stored in the thermal image data storing means 11.

FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of a posture discriminating apparatus applied device according to the present invention. The posture discriminating apparatus 1 has exactly the same configuration as the posture discriminating apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 1, and performs the same processing. Reference numeral 16 denotes a device control unit that uses, as a control signal, indoor posture information 106 obtained from the posture determination unit 15 of the posture determination device 1. For example, if the device to be controlled is an air conditioner, the human posture information 106
It is sufficient if three major distinctions can be made between standing, sitting and lying. Examples of control of the air conditioner by posture include lowering the temperature a little when standing and increasing the air flow, raising the temperature a little while sitting, lowering the temperature when lying down and weakening the air flow. Perform control.

FIG. 3 shows an arrangement for performing both edge detection and cut-out temperature as an example of detecting the above-mentioned human region. A spatial filter often used for extracting a region from two-dimensional image data is shown in FIG. The method of extracting the contour line used is adopted. The thermal image data 200 from the thermal image 20 is used as a contour line extracting means 2 using a spatial filter.
1, where the edge of the thermal image data 200 is detected. The line image data 201 obtained by the edge detection is input to the area extracting unit 23, and becomes a signal 203 indicating the area. The signal 203 indicating the region includes a region other than the human region.
The region extracting unit 22 extracts a region of the designated temperature range indicating the human-like temperature of the human, and obtains, by the signal synthesizing unit 24, a region where the signal 202 and the region signal 203 obtained from the edge are simultaneously obtained. Ask.

FIG. 4 shows the attitude determining means 15 shown in FIGS.
Shows an example of the processing in. Reference numerals 30, 31, and 32 denote thermal image data obtained from the shape discriminating means 13. As an example of a simple shape discriminating method, an example in which three types of shape discrimination of a vertically long, a horizontally long, and a square are performed based on a ratio of a length and a width of an area is shown. 3
Numerals 3, 34 and 35 show the results of discriminating three types of postures: standing, lying, and sitting with respect to the shapes of the thermal image data 30, 31, and 32. However, the standing position 33 is indistinguishable from the posture of a person sleeping in the vertical direction in the room. Therefore, using the motion signal 105 obtained by the motion detecting means 14, if no motion is observed, Judge as 36.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a motion detection process in the motion detection means 14. When three continuous thermal image data for three seconds are stored in the thermal image data storage means 11,
In the motion detecting means 14, three continuous thermal image data 4
Using 0, 41, and 42, processing of subtraction of the pixel values of the thermal image data 40 and 41, and 41 and 42 for each pixel is performed by the calculation means 45 and 46, respectively. The calculated thermal image data 43 and 44 include thermal image data 40 and 41 and 41, respectively.
If no moving object is recorded in steps 42 and 42, an image having a value of zero is created. Further, in the thermal image data 40, 41, and 42, when the temperature of a moving object such as a human is higher than the temperature of another region, as shown in the thermal image data 43, the pixel value of the region before movement is minus. , And the area after the movement has a positive pixel value. The area of the moving object can be obtained from the pixel values.

FIG. 6 shows the flow of processing in the posture determination device 1. The thermal image data obtained from the image input means 10 is stored in the thermal image data storage means 11 (step 5).
0), a human area is extracted from the thermal image data by the human area detecting means 12 (step 51), and then the shape of the area is determined by the shape determining means 13 (step 5).
2) It is delivered to the posture determining means 15. In addition, the motion detection unit 14 detects the area of the moving object from the stored image data (step 53), and the posture determination unit 15 determines the posture of the human from the result and the shape (step 54).

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention, a human area is detected from two-dimensional image data, and the posture of the human is determined from the detection result of the shape of the human area and the motion area. In addition, it is possible to easily and accurately determine the posture of a person. Further, by applying the present invention to an apparatus such as an air conditioner and using the posture information of a person for a control signal, it becomes possible to automatically operate a device requiring the posture information of a person.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a posture determination device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a posture determination device application device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an apparatus for performing a human area extraction process according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing an example of human posture determination processing according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a motion area detection process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a posture determination device in a conventional example.

[Description of Signs] 1 Attitude determination device 10 Image input means 11 Thermal image data storage means 12 Human region detection means 13 Shape determination means 14 Motion detection means 15 Attitude determination means 16 Equipment control means

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor ▲ Yoshi ▼ Kunio Tada 3-10-1, Higashi Mita, Tama-ku, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture Inside Matsushita Giken Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Ikuo Akamine Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture 1006 Oji Kadoma Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Makoto Shimizu 1006 Oji Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Pref. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Katsuhiko Fujiwara 1006 Okadoma Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture Address Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (56) References JP-A-5-118613 (JP, A) JP-A-5-118612 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) ) G01B 11/00-11/30 F24F 11/00-11/08

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] 1. An image input means for detecting two-dimensional image information in a room, an image data storage means for storing image data obtained from the image input means, and a human for detecting a human area on the image data. Area detecting means, shape determining means for determining the shape of a human area, motion detecting means for detecting human motion from image data stored in the image data storage means, a shape signal from the shape determining means and An attitude determining device comprising: an attitude determining means for determining a human attitude from a motion signal from the motion detecting means. 2. The attitude determination device according to claim 1, wherein the image input means is an image input device using a pyroelectric infrared sensor. 3. The posture of the human being to be discriminated is a standing posture, a sitting posture,
3. The posture determination device according to claim 1, wherein the posture determination device is in a supine position. 4. A posture discriminating apparatus applied device using the posture discriminating apparatus according to claim 1 and using, as a control signal, human posture information obtained from the apparatus. 5. The posture discriminating apparatus applied device according to claim 4, wherein the applied device is an air conditioner, and controls the temperature, the air volume, and the wind direction based on human posture information.