Robot User Monitoring Mode Sound Triggered Camera Activation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Communication robots often waste resources and increase electricity consumption when operating unnecessarily, causing user inconvenience, especially in situations like sleep mode, and fail to effectively monitor user states while minimizing power consumption.
Innovation Solution
A robot with a user monitoring mode that inactivates the camera and activates the microphone, driving the camera only based on sound signals to confirm events, and performs operations based on image analysis, minimizing power consumption and user disruption by controlling motor positions and updating user history.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the robot continuously operates the camera to monitor user state, then monitoring reliability is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The robot uses periodic action by alternating between microphone-based sound monitoring and camera-based visual monitoring. The camera is activated only when sound events are detected, creating a periodic monitoring pattern that reduces power consumption while maintaining monitoring reliability through multi-sensory coordination.
Solution Approach 2:
The microphone serves as an intermediary sensor that filters and pre-processes environmental information before triggering the camera. This intermediary layer reduces unnecessary camera activation and enables intelligent event-based monitoring, resolving the contradiction between continuous monitoring and power saving.
2Measurement precision
If the robot activates the camera frequently to detect events, then event detection precision is improved, but user inconvenience increases
Solution Approach 1:
The microphone acts as an intermediary that filters environmental sounds and identifies significant events before triggering camera activation. This prevents unnecessary camera operation during normal conditions while ensuring precise event detection when needed, thereby maintaining user convenience.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces continuous mechanical camera operation with acoustic event-triggered activation. This substitution allows precise event detection through sound-based triggering while minimizing visual disruption to users, resolving the contradiction between detection precision and user convenience.
3Measurement precision
If the robot operates all sensors continuously, then monitoring accuracy is improved, but resource waste increases
Solution Approach 1:
The robot implements periodic action by cycling between low-power microphone monitoring and high-power camera monitoring. The camera operates periodically only when sound events are detected, reducing energy loss while maintaining monitoring accuracy through coordinated multi-sensory operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The microphone serves as an intermediary that pre-filters environmental data and triggers camera activation only when necessary. This intermediary mechanism eliminates resource waste from continuous camera operation while preserving monitoring accuracy through event-based activation.
Data Source
AI summary
A robot according to the present disclosure comprises: a microphone; a camera disposed to face a predetermined direction; and a processor configured to: inactivate driving of the camera and activate driving of the microphone, if a driving mode of the robot is set to a user monitoring mode; acquire a sound signal through the microphone; activate the driving of the camera based on an event estimated from the acquired sound signal; confirm the event from the image acquired through the camera; and control at least one constituent included in the robot to perform an operation based on the confirmed event.