GB2600078A

GB2600078A - A movement sensor for sensing movement events

Info

Publication number: GB2600078A
Application number: GB2012726.2A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Angel Higgins Jacob
Original assignee: Flow Tech Ltd
Current assignee: Flow Tech Ltd
Priority date: 2020-08-14
Filing date: 2020-08-14
Publication date: 2022-04-27
Also published as: GB202012726D0

Abstract

A movement sensor 10 for sensing movement events comprises a detection zone configured to determine a direction of movement of a person moving past the sensor as a first direction or a second direction. The sensor provides the determined direction of movement as a movement event. A sensor system 100 tracks movement events, the system comprising the movement sensor 10, a cloud server 6 and an electronic device. The movement sensor determines the direction of movement of a plurality of persons to determine a plurality of movement events and sends the determined movement events to the cloud server. The cloud server processes the movement events to determine footfall data and provides the footfall data to the electronic device. The sensor may be an infrared sensor comprising a single photon avalanche. The sensor may have a plurality of detection zones and determines the direction of movement based on the relative timings of movement being detected in the zones. The sensor may store the movement event and provide a timestamp with the movement event. The sensor allows the accurate tracking of footfall into or out of a location, outlet, venue, shop or establishment.

Description

A MOVEMENT SENSOR FOR SENSING MOVEMENT EVENTS

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a movement sensor for sensing movement events and a sensor system for tracking movement events.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Movement sensors are known. However, their functionality is lacking for many applications. Outlets such as high street shops typically have persons entering and exiting throughout their opening hours at varying rates. This results in relatively busy periods, and relatively quiet periods, which depend on the capacity of said outlet. Busy periods benefit outlets through increased business, but perhaps are less desirable to consumers. Alternatively, quiet periods are perhaps more desirable to consumers, but less desirable and beneficial to the outlets.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The inventor has appreciated the need to be able to accurately track the footfall in to and out of a particular location, outlet, venue, establishment, business, shop or the like. Such footfall data can be utilised by outlets such as by shop owners to monitor busyness and enable businesses to provide, for example, exclusive deals based on busyness. The footfall data may also be conveniently accessed by consumers, allowing them to know how busy a business or shop is, and also allowing them access to the exclusive deals. This provides convenience for consumers, while ultimately benefitting businesses. This is achieved using a bi-directional movement sensor capable of sensing and providing movements of a person into and out of an outlet. The sensor may be utilised in a system capable of using information obtained by the sensor, and analysing and distributing information to both business owners and consumers.

The invention is defined by the independent claims to which reference should now be made. Optional features are set forth in the dependent claims.

Arrangements of the present disclosure allow consumers to see exactly how busy their everyday outlets are in real-time, while simultaneously offering business owners a platform to encourage their consumers to visit during quiet times, which ultimately benefits businesses. "Outlet" includes any relevant location, venue, business, shop, establishment, or the like. Broadly, some embodiments of the present disclosure work by installing bidirectional movement sensors at the entrance/exits of an outlet to track movement events of consumers entering and exiting the outlet. The data is then sent to electronic devices, such as mobile devices, of both consumers and business owners, and can be viewed through an application on said devices.

According to an aspect of the invention, there is provided a movement sensor for sensing movement events, the sensor comprising: a detection zone configured to determine a direction of movement of a person moving past the sensor as a first direction or a second direction, the sensor being configured to provide the determined direction of movement as a movement event.

The sensor may record the determined movement events. For example, the sensor may comprise a memory such that movement events may be stored.

The sensor may be a relatively small sensor. For example, it may be sized 50mm x 20mm x lOmm. The sensor may be battery powered. The battery powered sensor may last approximately four months, and may run using AA batteries, for example two AA batteries. The sensor may be mounted to a surface such as a well or ceiling. The sensor may be mounted using Velcro, or any other suitable mounting means. Power to the sensor may be derived from a battery pack or an external direct current (DC) power supply. For example, the sensor (or indeed the sensor system explained below) may have an update rate of five minutes, therefore a battery powered operation may be suitable. An update rate may be how often the sensor provides movement events to a sensor system. However, a system requiring an update rate in the range of a few seconds may require an external DC power source. This may be the case, for example, in an outlet such as a supermarket operating under social distancing guidelines during a pandemic, which may require detailed knowledge of footfall.

The sensor may comprise a plurality of detection zones to determine the direction of movement of a person. The plurality of detection zones may be arranged such that a direction is determined based on which of the plurality of zones detects movement first and which of the detection zones subsequently detects movement, or which detects movement last. The plurality of detection zones may comprise a first detection zone and a second detection zone. The sensor may be configured to determine the movement event as a first movement event if the first detection zone detects movement before the second detection zone, or a second movement event if the second detection zone detects movement before the first detection zone. That is, a person moving past the sensor may first be detected by the first detection zone and then the second detection zone. Such a movement pattern may result in a first movement direction being determined. A person moving past the sensor may first be detected by the second detection zone and then the first detection zone. Such a movement pattern may result in a second movement direction be determined. The first and second movement directions may correspond to in and out directions (of an outlet), or entrance and exit directions (of an outlet) respectively.

The sensor may comprise three detection zones. The detection zones may be consecutive. Similarly to that described above, a movement direction may be determined based on which of the detection zones detects movement first, subsequently, and last. The zones may be arranged in a series of zones horizontally. A person may move in the zonal pattern "1-2-3", in which case a first direction is determined. A person may move in the zonal pattern "3-2-1", in which case a second direction is determined. By providing three movement zones, the accuracy of the movement detection is increased.

The sensor may be configured to provide a timestamp corresponding to a movement event. By doing so, an exact time of each movement event may be known and provided to a sensor system along with the corresponding movement events. Therefore the data provided by the sensor may be used to know the occupancy of an outlet at a particular time, as it will be known how many persons have entered and exited the outlet.

The sensor may be configured to send the movement event or events to another device or system. The sensor may send the movement event or events with the corresponding timestamp(s). The sensor may send the movement events over wireless communication or wired communication. The sensor may send the movement events over a Wi-Fi connection.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sensor system for tracking movement events, the system comprising: the sensor according to any embodiment described above; a cloud server, the sensor being configured to determine the direction of movement of a plurality of persons to determine a plurality of movement events and send the determined movement events to the cloud server, the cloud server being configured to process the movement events to determine footfall data; and an electronic device, the cloud server being configured to provide the footfall data to the electronic device.

The footfall data may comprise occupancy data. That is, the footfall data may include data regarding how many people have passed in and out of an outlet, and thus may include how many people are presently in an outlet. In this example, the cloud server is a plurality of servers and in particular servers remote from the sensor located on a different site. The electronic device may be any suitable computing device, such as a mobile telephone device, tablet computer, laptop computer, or desktop computer.

The cloud server may be configured to provide information data to the electronic device based on the determined footfall data. The information data may comprise one or more of: real-time occupancy data; advertisements; time-sensitive deals; outlet suggestions; predicted quiet times; opening times; consumer demographic; and footfall data analysis.

The footfall data may comprise a footfall value. The footfall value may comprise the amount of persons in an outlet at a particular time. The cloud server may be configured to provide the information data to the electronic device when the footfall value is below a predetermined value. For example, the footfall value may indicate that the amount of persons in a particular outlet at a particular time is below a certain value. Based on this, information data may be provided to the electronic device. In other words, information may be provided to a user of an electronic device based on the footfall data, or how busy an outlet is.

The predetermined value may be determined using a machine learning algorithm configured to analyse the footfall data and provide an appropriate predetermined value. An appropriate value may be a value that is considered to be appropriate for a particular outlet. For example, the predetermined value appropriate for a particular outlet may be a value at which that outlet is considered "quiet" or in other words not busy. This may be achieved by the algorithm analysing historical data to ascertain a capacity of a particular outlet and extrapolating quietness for that outlet.

The electronic device may be a first electronic device, and the system may further comprise a second electronic device and the footfall data may also be provided to the second device. The first device may be a consumer device and the second device may be a business device. That is, significantly, the system may provide footfall data and information data to both a consumer device and a business device. A consumer device may be a device used by a consumer, for example a customer of an outlet such as a shop. A business device may be used by a business owner, such an owner of an outlet such as a shop.

The electronic device or devices may comprise an application configured to process and present the received data and information to a user. The consumer device may comprise a consumer application or consumer-side application. The consumer application may comprise a user interface configured for a consumer. For example, the consumer application may show when a consumer's favourite outlets are quiet, and provide information data such as exclusive time-sensitive deals during quiet times.

Advantageously, this benefits consumers by saving them both time and money, and they are able to plan their day more effectively. Key features of the consumer application may include: "Home" -this portion of the application provides all the outlets using the sensor system in an easy to digest and informative way. This portion may comprise favourites, recommended, nearby, and deals, and may show key information such as the outlet name, the geographical location (which may include distance from a consumer's current location), current occupancy data, and whether or not the outlet is considered quiet. This portion of the application may act as a scrollable directory of places to go, making it ideal for native advertising.

"Search" -A consumer may be able to search for an outlet by name, type, and geographical location. Using the historical browsing and visiting habits of a consumer, the application may suggest outlets for the consumer based on their previous actions. Outlets which implement the sensor system may be shown on a map provided by the application. This offers an alternative way of searching for outlets.

"Outlet profile" -At this portion of the application, information about a particular outlet may be displayed. This may include analysis of footfall data, real-time occupancy, predicted quiet times, time-sensitive deals or advertisements, opening times, and more. At this portion of the application, consumers may be able to redeem discounts for a particular outlet, add an outlet to favourites, see opening times, and make informed decisions as to what time to visit.

"Notifications" -Consumer's may receive push notifications from outlets. For example, notifications may be received from nearby or favourited outlets, letting a consumer when a desired outlet such as their favourited outlet becomes quiet, or when there is a time-sensitive deal or advertisement on. A consumer may also set specific times to be notified, allowing the notifications to be tailored to their personal schedule.

There may also be provided an application and user interface configured to the second electronic device, such as for businesses or business owners. This application or portion of the application may provide information about an outlet or outlets such as utilisation, number of deals used, footfall data or throughput, consumer demographic, and how the sensor system itself has benefited the business over time. A business profile may be structured within the app in a similar way to business accounts on apps such as social media apps, for example a single app comprising two sections. Each sensor may be linked to a business owner's profile. This may be done by scanning, using an electronic device, an identifier such as a OR code on the sensor via the application. This tells the sensor which profile to send data to, as well as links multiple sensors to the same account. The business owner may run a setup test, guided on the app, to calibrate the sensor to that specific entrance. This may be a quick and easy process, for example it may take less than two minutes. Data is therefore being collected in real-time for the outlet and being analysed on the business profile of the application. Key features of the business-side of the application may include: "Real-time footfall tracking" -highly accurate tracking of footfall is provided and sent in real-time to the business profile on the application for analysis. If the application is used, for example by an outlet chain, a breakdown of the footfall data may be provided per individual outlet in a clean and intuitive format. In an outlet with multiple key interior locations, for example a gym comprising a spin room, a weight room, and a pool, a breakdown of the footfall data may be displayed in a hierarchical format, allowing each interior location to be analysed separately. A heat map may be provided, providing information in real time illustrating the footfall of each interior location.

"Analytics and insights" -Using artificial intelligence (Al) and machine learning (ML), the footfall data may be analysed in a lot of detail. The business profile may display a breakdown of occupancy in a specified time period, for example by day, week, month, or year. The occupancy may also be viewed based on other variables, such as weather conditions, holidays, or time-of-year. The application may suggest optimum times to set deals in order to provide the greatest increase in footfall. The application may also suggest other actions the business owner may take to smooth out the consumer flow, thus increasing profits for the business. The application may also provide a breakdown of how the sensor system has improved footfall, profits, and/or consumer satisfaction over time since being installed by showing the business owner how many more consumers have been acquired. Consumers may be prompted to leave a review of the service at the outlet, allowing the business owner to receive feedback of how the sensor system has improved consumer satisfaction since being installed.

"Time-sensitive deals and notifications" -When an outlet becomes quiet, the business owner may device to provide a notification to new, existing, and/or nearby consumers. An example notification might say, "It's quiet! Come down to <outlet name> now to beat the queues!". The business owner may also include a deal with the notification that is sent. This may be done automatically by the app. The business owner may decide a threshold at which the deal is sent out. For example, if the occupancy of an outlet falls below a certain number at a certain time, a particular deal may be provided with a particular discount. As an example, a business owner might indicate that: "if it gets below four people in my store between 12:00 and 16:00, send a '10% off any order 'discount with a time limit of 2 hours". Once a threshold has been set, all future deals may be sent out automatically, which is convenient for the business owner. A, example time-sensitive deal notification might be: "It's quiet! Come down to <outlet name> in the next two hours to receive 10% off any order!". This benefits the business owner by encouraging consumers to visit during the quiet period, while simultaneously saving the consumer time and money.

Any of the information presented in the applications described above including both the consumer application on the consumer device and business application on the business device may be comprised in the information data described above. That is, any of the information described above may be provided based on the data sent from the sensor to the cloud server.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a method for tracking movement events, the method comprising: a sensor determining a direction of movement of a plurality of persons moving past the sensor as first or second directions and providing the determined directions of movement as a movement events; the sensor sending the determined movement events to a cloud server; the cloud server processing the movement events to determine footfall data; and the cloud server sending the footfall data to an electronic device.

The method may implement the sensor or sensor system of any of the embodiments described above. The cloud server may send information data to the electronic device based on the determined footfall data. The footfall data may comprise a footfall value.

The cloud server may send information data to the electronic device when the footfall data is below a predetermined value. The method may further comprise using a machine learning algorithm to analyse the footfall data and provide an appropriate predetermined value.

The electronic device may be a first electronic device and the cloud server may also send the footfall data to a second electronic device. The first electronic device may be a consumer device. The second electronic device may be a business device.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there may also be provided a computer program for carrying out the method as described above.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will be described in more detail, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a sensor system embodying an aspect of the present invention in use; and Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of a movement sensor embodying an aspect of the present invention.

Like features are denoted by like reference numerals.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

An example sensor system will now be described with reference to Figure 1.

Figure 1 illustrates a sensor system 100 in use. In this example, the sensor system 100 is implemented in an outlet, which here is a store outlet. The system 100 comprises a movement sensor 10, situated at an entrance/exit of the outlet. The movement sensor comprises an accurate range measuring device. The movement sensor 10 comprises an infrared sensor comprising a single photon avalanche. In this example, the movement sensor 10 is positioned at a mounting location 16 above the entrance/exit. The movement sensor 10 comprises wireless connection functionality, and connects wirelessly to a wireless communication module in the form of a hub device 12. The hub device 12 is in connection with a cloud server 14.

The movement sensor 10 is configured to determine the direction of movement of a plurality of persons to determine a plurality of movement events. Figure 1 illustrates a person 18 moving towards the entrance of the outlet, and thus towards the movement sensor 10.

The movement sensor 10 comprises a detection zone, and in this example the sensor 10 comprises two detection zones 20 and 22, forming a resultant field of view. The movement sensor 10 repeatedly measures the distance from its mounting location 16 to a corresponding surface, which in this example is the floor.

When a person 18 reaches the field of view of the sensor, a first detection zone 20 will detect that a change in distance measurement to the floor has occurred, signifying that a person 18 or object has entered the detection zone. As person 18 moves through detection zones 20 and 22, software running on the movement sensor 10 determines the direction of movement of person 18 as a first direction, which in this example indicates an "in" direction, into the outlet. The movement sensor 10 provides this movement direction as a movement event. Had the detection zones 20 and 22 detected movement in the opposite order, an "out" direction and movement event would have been determined.

The movement sensor 10 in this example is configured to record movement events corresponding to objects above a predetermined height. This enables the movement sensor 10 to ignore movements of objects such as a ball 25.

The movement sensor 10 provides determined movement events to the cloud server 14 via the hub 12. The movement events are sent along with corresponding fimestamps, also recorded by the movement sensor 10 at the time of determining movement events.

The cloud device 14 processes the movement events received from the movement sensor 10 to determine footfall data. The footfall data comprises a footfall value, which indicates the amount of persons in the outlet at a particular time.

In connection with the cloud server 14 are electronic devices (not shown). The electronic devices include a business device, belonging to the owner of the outlet and comprising a business side application. The electronic devices also include a consumer device comprising a consumer side application.

The footfall data is provided to the electronic devices. When the footfall value falls below a predetermined value (that is, the number of persons in the outlet falls below a predetermined value), information data is also provided to the electronic devices. The consumer device receives, from the cloud server 14, information including advertisements and time-sensitive deals. The business device receives, from the cloud server 14, consumer demographic and footfall data analysis.

The predetermined value is determined by a machine learning algorithm configured to analyse the footfall data and provide an appropriate predetermined value.

Figure 2 illustrates a schematic diagram of the movement sensor 10. The movement sensor 10 comprises an accurate range finding device which, as above, is an infrared sensor 30. The infrared sensor 30 calculates the distance to an object or surface in its field of view to provide range data.

The movement sensor 10 also comprises a control device 32 to receive the range data from the infrared sensor 30. The movement sensor 10 further comprises a software control system 34, as well as a memory 36 facilitating data storage, in particular the storage of determined movement events and corresponding timestamps.

The movement sensor 10 also comprises a communications system 38 configured to transmit determined data to the cloud server 14 via the hub 12. Lastly, the movement sensor 10 comprises a power source 40.

The movement device 10 uses range data provided by the infrared sensor 30 and the control system 32 and software 34 to determine when an object passes its field of view and in which direction. This information is recorded in the memory 36 and then periodically sent to the cloud server 14 using the communications system 38 to transmit data.

Embodiments of the present invention have been described. It will be appreciated that variations and modifications may be made to the described embodiments within the scope of the present invention.

Claims

CLAIMS1. A movement sensor for sensing movement events, the sensor comprising: a detection zone configured to determine a direction of movement of a person moving past the sensor as a first direction or a second direction, the sensor being configured to provide the determined direction of movement as a movement event.
A movement sensor according to claim 1 wherein the sensor is an infrared sensor.
3. A movement sensor according to claim 2 wherein the sensor comprises a single photon avalanche.
4. A movement sensor according to any preceding claim further comprising a plurality of detection zones configured to determine the direction of movement of a person.
5. A movement sensor according to claim 4 wherein: the plurality of detection zones comprises a first detection zone and a second detection zone; and the sensor is configured to determine the movement event as a first movement event if the first detection zone detects movement before the second detection zone, or a second movement event if the second detection zone detects movement before the first detection zone.
6. A movement sensor according to any preceding claim wherein the sensor comprises three detection zones.
7. A movement sensor according to any preceding claim wherein the sensor comprises a memory configured to store the movement event.
8. A movement sensor according to any preceding claim wherein the sensor is configured to provide a timestamp corresponding to the movement event.
9. A movement sensor according to any preceding claim wherein the sensor is configured to send the movement event over wireless communication.
10. A sensor system for tracking movement events, the system comprising: the movement sensor of any of claims 'I to 9; a cloud server, the movement sensor being configured to determine the direction of movement of a plurality of persons to determine a plurality of movement events and send the determined movement events to the cloud server, the cloud server being configured to process the movement events to determine footfall data; and an electronic device, the cloud server being configured to provide the footfall data to the electronic device.
11. A sensor system according to claim 10 wherein the cloud server is configured to provide information data to the electronic device based on the determined footfall data.
12. A sensor system according to claim 10 or claim 11 wherein the footfall data comprises a footfall value.
13. A sensor system according to claim 12 wherein the cloud server is configured to provide information data to the electronic device when the footfall value is below a predetermined value.
14. A sensor system according to according to claim 13 wherein the predetermined value is determined using a machine learning algorithm configured to analyse the footfall data and provide an appropriate predetermined value.
15. A sensor system according to any of claims 11 to 14 wherein the information data comprises one or more of: real-time occupancy data; advertisements; time-sensitive deals; outlet suggestions; predicted quiet times; opening times; consumer demographic; and footfall data analysis.
16. A sensor system according to any of claims 10 to 15 wherein the electronic device is a first electronic device, the system further comprising a second electronic device and the footfall data is also provided to the second electronic device.
17. A sensor system according to claim 16 wherein the first electronic device is a consumer device and the second electronic device is a business device.
18. A method for tracking movement events, the method comprising: a movement sensor determining a direction of movement of a plurality of persons moving past the sensor as first or second directions and providing the determined directions of movement as movement events; the movement sensor sending the determined movement events to a cloud server; the cloud server processing the movement events to determine footfall data; and the cloud server sending the footfall data to an electronic device.
19. A method according to claim 18 further comprising the cloud server sending information data to the electronic device based on the determined footfall data.
20. A method according to claim 18 or 19 wherein the footfall data comprises a footfall value.
21. A method according to claim 20 further comprising the cloud server sending information data to the electronic device when the footfall value is below a predetermined value.
22. A method according to claim 21 further comprising determining the predetermined value using a machine learning algorithm to analyse the footfall data and provide an appropriate predetermined value.
23. A method according to any of claims 18 to 22 wherein the electronic device is a first electronic device and the cloud server also sends the footfall data to a second electronic device, the first electronic device being a consumer device and the second electronic device being a business device.
24. A computer program for carrying out the method of any of claims 18 to 23.