Patent ID: 7545278
Filing Date: 2009-06-09
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. An article position estimating apparatus comprising: an article detecting device, arranged in a vicinity of an entrance of a room through which at least persons enter and exit, for identifying and detecting different articles so as to distinguish the different articles; an article management database for storing identification information, information on detected locations, and information on detected times of the articles detected in the article detecting device, as article management information; a person detecting device for distinguishing and detecting positions of the persons in the room for each individual; a person management database for storing person movement history information of the persons detected in the person detecting device; and an article present region estimating means for specifying the person detected within a predetermined time including the detected time of the article using the information on the detected times of the articles stored in the article management database and the movement history information of the persons stored in the person management database, and for estimating, when the person and the article are simultaneously detected by the person detecting device and the article detecting device based on the movement history information of the specified person of the person management database, a subsequent movement region of the detected person as an article present region of the article; further comprising an article position candidate weighting means for performing weighting so that a weight of the article present region where the article is likely to be present is high based on possibility that the article is present with respect to a plurality of estimated article present regions with reference to the information stored in the article management database or the person management database; wherein the article position candidate weighting means extracts information on a detected location and information on a detected time out of the movement history information in which the movement speed is less than or equal to a predetermined value set in advance in the movement history information of the person, respectively as stay state, and performs weighting so that the weight of the article present region where the article is likely to be present is high for a region in which an average value of the movement speed of the person is low using the average value of the movement speed of the person obtained with reference to each information configuring the stay state.