Verifying bin content in a materials handling facility
AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.
InventorsJames Christopher Curlander, Jules Cook Graybill, Marshall Friend Tappen, Barry James O'Brien
Life of this patent
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Abstract
This disclosure describes a device and system for verifying the content of items in a bin within a materials handling facility. In some implementations, a bin content verification apparatus may pass by one or more bins and capture images of those bins. The images may be processed to determine whether the content included in the bins has changed since the last time images of the bins were captured. A determination may also be made as to whether a change to the bin content was expected and, if so, if the determined change corresponds with the expected change.
Claims20
A computer-implemented method for verifying content of a bin at a location within a materials handling facility, comprising:
- under control of one or more computing systems configured with executable instructions,
- receiving a current bin image that includes a first representation of the bin and a first representation of content included in the bin;
- determining a stored bin image, wherein the stored bin image includes a second representation of the bin and a second representation of content included in the bin;
- processing the current bin image and the stored bin image to determine that a content change has occurred with respect to the content in the bin;
- determining an area of the current bin image corresponding to the determined content change;
- determining a confidence score representative of a confidence that the determined content change corresponds to an expected content change;
- and
- determining that the content included in the bin is accurate based at least in part on the confidence score exceeding a confidence threshold.
A system for verifying content included in a bin, the system comprising:
- an apparatus, including:
- an image capture device oriented to capture an image of a bin located at a bay as the apparatus moves past the bay;
- a power supply connected to the image capture device and configured to provide power to the image capture device;
- an encoder configured to determine position information representative of a position of the apparatus as the apparatus moves;
- a storage component in communication with the image capture device and the encoder, wherein the storage component is configured to store the image and the position information representative of a position of the apparatus at a time when the image was captured;
- and
- a computing system, including:
- one or more processors;
- and
- a memory coupled to the one or more processors and storing program instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to at least:
- receive from the storage component the image of the bin and the position information;
- correlate the image of the bin with a stored image of the bin;
- determine, based at least in part on the image and the stored image, if at least one item of content included in the bin has changed;
- determine if a change to the content included in the bin was expected;
- and
- determine, based at least in part on the determination of whether at least one item of content included in the bin has changed and based at least in part on whether the change to the content included in the bin was expected, whether the content included in the bin is accurate.
A computer-implemented method for verifying content of a bin, comprising:
- under control of one or more computing systems configured with executable instructions,
- receiving a current bin image that includes a representation of content included in the bin;
- correlating the received image with a stored image of the bin;
- determining, based at least in part on the image and the stored image, if at least one item of content included in the bin has changed;
- determining if a change to the content included in the bin was expected;
- and
- determining, based at least in part on the determination of whether at least one item of content included in the bin has changed and based at least in part on whether the change to the content included in the bin was expected, whether the content included in the bin is accurate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.