Systems and methods for use in detecting falls utilizing thermal sensing
AssigneeForesite Healthcare, LLC
InventorsGeorge Chronis, Erik Stone, Mark Schaumburg
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Systems and methods designed to detect a human being falling as opposed to an inanimate object. Generally, the systems and methods will utilize a depth camera, which will often image in the NIR spectrum to detect a falling object. The portion detected as a falling object will often be detected as separating from a point cloud indicative of one object in contact with another. Should such a separation be detected, the systems and methods will utilize a thermal sensor, often a camera imaging in the LWIR spectrum, to determine if the falling portion has a heat signature indicative of a human being.
Claims15
A monitor for determining if a human being has fallen, the monitor comprising:
- a means for imaging depth in a first point cloud and a second point cloud comprising a separated portion of said first point cloud;
- a means for interpreting output of both said depth camera and said thermal sensor and determining from said imaging of said second point cloud that said second point cloud's motion is indicative of said separated portion falling;
- a means for imaging emitted heat from said first point cloud and said second point cloud;
- a means for comparing emitted heat from said first point cloud to emitted heat from said second point cloud;
- and
- a means for determining that a human being has fallen only if said second point cloud includes greater heat emitted than said first point cloud.
A system for determining if a human being has fallen, said system comprising:
- a sensor, said sensor not being in physical contact with said human being;
- a central server communicatively coupled to said sensor, said central server comprising a microprocessor and a non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable program instructions thereon which, when executed by said microprocessor, cause said central server to perform the steps of:
- receiving from said sensor data about said human being gathered by said sensor;
- extracting from said data about said human a plurality of data features;
- determining whether said human has fallen, based at least in part on said plurality of data features.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.