Patent ID: 11963759
Assignee: MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC A  G | IPC A  G

Claim 13:
14. A state determination method performed by a state determination device, the state determination method comprising:
Extracting a face region representing a region corresponding to a face from each of a plurality of image frames successively obtained by electronically capturing images of a user's face, extracting face feature points representing parts of the face from the face region, calculating a face feature value extraction region as a region where a change occurs in the face region when the user is in an unawakened state based on the face feature points, extracting a face feature value as a feature value from the face feature value extraction region,
determining whether the user is in the unawakened state or not based on the face feature value in each of the plurality of frames and previously generated determination information, and
outputting a determination result,
wherein
the face feature value extraction region is a glabella region, a mouth region and a cheek region in the face region,
the determination information includes information for determining an unawakenedness level according to a number of times the user wrinkled the user's glabella and information for determining an unawakenedness level according to a number of times the user yawned, and
when the state determination device determines whether the user is in the unawakened state or not, the state determination method includes calculating the number of times the user wrinkled the glabella based on the face feature value extracted from the glabella region in each of the plurality of frames, determining the unawakenedness level based on the number of times the user wrinkled the glabella and the determination information, calculating the number of times the user yawned based on the face feature values extracted from the mouth region and the cheek region in each of the plurality of frames, determining the unawakenedness level based on the number of times the user yawned and the determination information, calculating a mean value of the determined unawakenedness levels, and determining that the user is in the unawakened state when the mean value is higher than or equal to a predetermined threshold value,
wherein the user is an automobile driver or a factory worker and the process of determining whether the user is in the unawakened state or not determines whether or not the automobile driver or factory worker is in the unawakened state to improve automotive or factory safety, respectively, and
wherein the process of determining the unawakenedness level accesses a state determination model table stored in memory and compares the calculated number of times the user wrinkled the glabella with information stored in the state determination model.