Patent ID: 8410445

Claim:
A human body sensing apparatus for detecting the number of people staying in an indoor space by sensing a human body moving in and out of the indoor space, the apparatus comprising: a plurality of sensor units for sensing the human body in areas sequentially set from an entrance toward inside of the indoor space; a movement state determination module including a plurality of analysis means for receiving sensing signals outputted from the plurality of sensor units and detecting whether a moving direction of the human body is an ‘entry’ direction from the entrance into the indoor space or an ‘exit’ direction, outputting a ‘determinate entry’ signal if all the moving directions detected by the plurality of analysis means are the ‘entry’ direction, and outputting a ‘determinate exit’ signal if all the moving directions detected by the plurality of analysis means are the ‘exit’ direction; and a count and correction module for increasing the number of people staying in the room by ‘1’ whenever the ‘determinate entry’ signal is inputted from the movement state determination module, and decreasing the number of people staying in the room by ‘1’ whenever the ‘determinate exit’ signal is inputted, wherein the movement state determination module outputs an ‘indeterminate entry’ signal if the ‘entry’ or ‘exit’ directions detected by the plurality of analysis modules for the check time do not correspond and the number of the ‘entry’ directions detected by the plurality of analysis modules is larger than the number of the ‘exit’ directions, and outputs an ‘indeterminate exit’ signal if the number of the ‘exit’ directions is larger than the number of the ‘entry’ directions, and wherein the count and correction module calculates an ‘indeterminate number of people staying in the room’ by adding ‘1’ to the number of people staying in the room if the ‘indeterminate entry’ signal is received and subtracting ‘1’ from the number of people staying in the room if the ‘indeterminate exit’ signal is received, corrects the ‘indeterminate number of people staying in the room’ by decreasing the ‘indeterminate number of people staying in the room’ by ‘1’ at every predetermined IDLE time while the sensing signal is not generated, and if the sensing signal is generated, decreasing the ‘indeterminate number of people staying in the room’ by ‘1’ based on detection of the ‘determinate exit’ signal and the ‘indeterminate exit’ signal, and increasing the ‘indeterminate number of people staying in the room’ by ‘1’ based on detection of the ‘determinate entry’ signal and the ‘indeterminate entry’ signal.