Video Camera Occupancy Counting for Disease Risk Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems lack effective methods to reduce the risk of disease spread among people in a space, particularly through person-to-person contact and surface contamination.
Innovation Solution
The system employs video cameras to count people in a space by subtracting background images from video streams, determining blob sizes, and comparing them to expected person sizes, thereby accurately counting individuals and detecting overcrowding.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If video cameras and image processing are used to count people, then occupancy monitoring capability is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual occupancy monitoring with an automated system using video cameras and image processing algorithms. The system captures video frames, processes images to detect and count people, and automatically generates occupancy data, eliminating the need for manual counting while providing continuous real-time monitoring capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses video imaging to create visual copies of people in the monitored space. By capturing and analyzing image data rather than requiring physical presence or contact-based sensing, the system can accurately count and track occupants without interfering with their activities or increasing physical system complexity.
2Reliability
If real-time occupancy data is collected and analyzed, then disease spread risk reduction is improved, but data processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary processing of video data by detecting and counting people in real-time as they enter or leave spaces. By maintaining current occupancy counts through continuous incremental updates rather than re-analyzing all historical data, the system reduces computational burden while ensuring accurate, up-to-date occupancy information for disease risk assessment.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors occupancy levels and provides real-time feedback about space utilization. This feedback mechanism allows building operators to make immediate decisions about ventilation adjustments, space allocation, or crowd management to prevent disease spread, creating a closed-loop system that responds dynamically to changing occupancy conditions.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for location tracking or maintaining a count of people in a building or space. An illustrative method may include storing a background image of a field of view of a video camera and receiving a video stream from the video camera. Background subtraction may be performed to identify one or more blobs in the field of view of the video camera. The size of the one or more blobs may be compared to an expected size of the blob at a similar distance from the camera. When the size of the blob is greater than the expected size of a person at the determined distance of the corresponding blob by more than a predetermined threshold the blob may be counted as two or more people.