Methods and apparatus to count persons in a monitored environment
AssigneeThe Nielsen Company (US), LLC
InventorRobert A. Luff
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and apparatus to count persons in a monitored environment are disclosed. An example apparatus to count the number of people in a monitored environment is described, which includes an image sensor having a plurality of pixels, a pseudorandom number generator to generate pseudorandom coordinates, a reader to read first pixel data generated by a first pixel of the image sensor at a first time, the first pixel corresponding to the pseudorandom coordinates, a comparator to compare the first pixel data with second pixel data generated by the first pixel at a second time different from the first time to generate a change value, and a counter configured to generate a count of persons based at least on the change value.
Claims25
An apparatus to count a number of persons in a monitored environment, comprising:
- an image sensor to collect a plurality of pixels;
- a pseudorandom number generator configured to generate sets of pseudorandom coordinates;
- a reader to read first pixel data generated by first pixels of the image sensor at corresponding first times, the first pixels corresponding to respective sets of the pseudorandom coordinates;
- a comparator to compare the first pixel data with second pixel data generated by the first pixels at respective second times different from the first times to generate first change values;
- and
- a counter to generate a count of persons based on the first change values.
A method to count a number of persons in a monitored environment, comprising:
- pseudorandomly selecting first pixels from a plurality of pixels in an image sensor at corresponding first times;
- collecting first information sensed by the first pixels at the first times;
- comparing the first information to second information sensed by the first pixels at corresponding second times different from the first times to generate first change values;
- and
- determining whether the change values are indicative of a person being present in the monitored environment.
A tangible storage medium comprising instructions, which, upon execution, cause a machine to at least:
- pseudorandomly select first pixels from a plurality of pixels in an image sensor at corresponding first times;
- collect first information sensed by the first pixels at the first times;
- compare the first information to second information sensed by the first pixels at corresponding second times different from the first times to generate first change values;
- and
- determine whether the change values are indicative of a person being present in a monitored environment.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.