Patent ID: 8630773

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for monitoring safety of a waste collection vehicle, the method comprising: obtaining a digital image captured by an image capturing device positioned on the waste collection vehicle, and creating a character matrix of the digital image by converting a distance between a lens of the image capturing device and each point in the digital image into a pixel value of the point; detecting a person in the digital image by comparing a pixel value of each point in the character matrix with a pixel value of a corresponding character point in a three dimensional (3D) image template, and determining an image sub-area in the digital image being the person when the image sub-area has a first specified number of points existing in the digital image, a pixel value of each point in the image sub-area being within an allowance range of a corresponding character point in the 3D image template; and cutting off power being supplied to the waste collection vehicle using a safety device of the waste collection vehicle upon the condition that the person has been detected.