Industrial Plant Image Acquisition With Personal Feature Removal

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Solution Overview

Problem

Industrial image acquisition methods often capture personal features, violating data protection regulations and requiring significant memory and processing resources.

Innovation Solution

An anonymized image acquisition method and apparatus that obscures personal features in images using pixelation or removal, employing neural networks for identification and segmentation, and encrypting images for secure transmission and storage.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If image acquisition is performed in industrial plants to monitor and control goods sequences, then monitoring and control functionality is improved, but data protection compliance deteriorates due to capture of personal features

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvemonitoring and control functionalityVSAvoiddata protection violation
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts and removes personal features from acquired images while preserving the useful information for industrial monitoring and control. The system identifies personal features such as faces, hands, or other identifiable body parts and selectively removes or obscures them, thereby separating the harmful data protection violation aspect from the useful monitoring functionality.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent applies different processing qualities to different regions of the image. Personal feature regions are processed with obscuring or removal to protect privacy, while non-personal regions are preserved in their original quality to maintain monitoring effectiveness. This local differentiation resolves the contradiction by applying privacy protection only where necessary.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

2Loss of information

If personal features are retained in acquired images for complete information recording, then information completeness is improved, but memory space requirements and processing complexity increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveinformation completenessVSAvoidmemory space and processing resources
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts personal features from the image data and removes them, thereby reducing the total data volume that needs to be stored and processed. This extraction eliminates redundant information (personal identifiers) while preserving essential industrial monitoring data, directly addressing the resource consumption issue.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent segments the image into personal feature regions and non-personal regions, then processes only the necessary portions. By segmenting and selectively retaining only the essential industrial information while discarding personal features, the system reduces memory and processing requirements without losing critical monitoring data.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Data Source

PatentUS12450392B2Method and apparatus for the anonymized image acquisition in an industrial plant
Publication Date: 2025.10.21 SICK AG
  • US12450392B2 patent drawing
  • US12450392B2 patent drawing
  • US12450392B2 patent drawing

AI summary

A method for the anonymized image acquisition in an industrial plant, comprising acquiring an image, wherein the image comprises an optoelectronically readable code and a personal feature; identifying the personal feature in the image; and obscuring the personal feature in the image.