Information collecting apparatus, information collecting system and information collecting method
AssigneeToshiba Tec Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorTakashi Tomiyama
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In one embodiment, an information collecting apparatus has a sensor, an arm, an arm drive mechanism, and a processor. The processor controls the arm drive mechanism to make the arm operate, and thereby makes the sensor move in the vicinity of an article arranged in a shelf. The processor acquires information indicating a state of the article to be measured by the sensor.
Claims19
An information collecting apparatus which collects information of an article placed on a shelf, comprising:
- an image sensor;
- an arm which supports the image sensor and is movable in both horizontal and vertical directions;
- an arm drive mechanism configured to move the arm;
- and
- a processor configured to
- upon receipt of an instruction to acquire information about an article, determine a location on a shelf on which the article is placed based on an entry in a database, and determine a position for the arm to be moved based on the determined location,
- control the arm drive mechanism to horizontally and vertically move the arm to the determined position, and
- when the arm is positioned at the determined position, control the image sensor to acquire an image at the determined location.
An information collecting system, comprising:
- an information collecting apparatus configured to collect information of an article placed on a shelf;
- and
- a host apparatus configured to process the information of the article which has been collected by the information collecting apparatus, wherein
- the information collecting apparatus comprises:
- an image sensor,
- an arm which supports the image sensor and is movable in both horizontal and vertical directions,
- an arm drive mechanism configured to move the arm,
- a communication interface configured to communicate with the host apparatus, and
- a processor configured to
- upon receipt of an instruction to acquire information about an article from the host apparatus, determine a location on a shelf on which the article is placed based on an entry in a database, and determine a position for the arm to be moved based on the determined location,
- control the arm drive mechanism to horizontally and vertically move the arm to the determined position,
- when the arm is positioned at the determined position, control the image sensor to acquire an image at the determined location, and
- transmits the acquired image to the host apparatus via the communication interface.
An information collecting method of collecting information of an article placed on a shelf, the method comprising:
- upon receipt of an instruction to acquire information about an article, determining a location on a shelf on which the article is placed based on an entry in a database, and determining a position for an arm, which has an image sensor, to be moved based on the determined location;
- horizontally and vertically moving the arm to the determined position;
- and
- when the arm is positioned at the determined position, controlling the image sensor to acquire an image at the determined location.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.