JP2878446B2 - Elevator hall waiter detection device - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an elevator hall waiter detection device, and more particularly to an elevator hall waiter capable of preventing an erroneous detection and accurately detecting the number of waiters. The present invention relates to a customer detection device.

2. Description of the Related Art As a conventional technique related to an elevator hall waiter detection apparatus, there is known an apparatus that detects an elevator hall waiter using a television camera. This type of waiting detection device generally uses a method of finding a difference between a background image stored in advance and an input image to be taken as needed, and detecting the presence or absence of a waiting person, the number of waiting guests, and the like based on the difference.

However, this method involves a change in the lighting condition of the hall, a change in external light conditions, a change in the background due to a transient factor such as a person passing through the hall, a person getting off the elevator, or a moving object other than a waiting person. Therefore, there is a possibility that erroneous detection may occur.

As a conventional technique for solving such a problem, for example,
A technique described in JP-A-64-91083 is known.

This prior art is provided with a lighting control device, and when the brightness of the hall changes due to external light, the lighting control device controls the lighting so that the amount of change is within a predetermined value.

Further, as another conventional technique, a technique described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-242986 is known.

In this conventional technique, video data of an elevator hall in which various lighting conditions are set is stored in advance as a pattern, and an optimal pattern is selected at the time of detecting a waiting customer, and the pattern is used as a reference pattern to detect a waiting customer. Is what you do.

Further, as another conventional technique, a technique described in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 2-15975 is known.

This prior art is provided with a means for predicting the time change of the number of people getting off at the landing after the car arrives, and based on the prediction result,
This is to correct the number of waiting passengers when the car arrives.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] Common problems in image processing for detecting a hall waiter of an elevator include a change in external light and a change in illumination. This is an effective method as one solution to this problem.

However, in the first and second prior arts, a lighting condition and a background are made to follow a change in external light or a variation in lighting, so that a person passing through a hall, a person getting off a car, etc. There is a problem that it is not possible to cope with a case where a moving body enters.

Further, the first prior art has a problem that it cannot be used when lighting control is not permitted, and the second prior art has a problem in that the image pattern in various lighting conditions is not used. Has a problem that a large-capacity memory is required to store the image data and that a method for selecting a video pattern must be considered.

On the other hand, the third prior art utilizes information from an elevator and is considered to be an effective method. However, it is difficult to accurately predict the number of people getting off a car, and it is necessary to completely eliminate errors. There is a problem that can not be.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to solve the above-described problems of the prior art, and to erroneously detect a waiting customer due to a change in external light, lighting fluctuation, or a transient factor such as a person passing through a hall or a person getting off a car. It is an object of the present invention to provide an elevator hall waiting passenger detection device that does not have any problem.

Means for Solving the Problems According to the present invention, the object is to provide an image processing period for detecting a hall waiter of an elevator, a first processing period for detecting a transient factor, and A second processing period for detection is provided, and a calculating means for performing a calculation in each of these periods is provided. Based on the calculation result, erroneous detection of a waiting customer due to a transient factor is prevented. Achieved.

In detail, the object is to process an image information output from a television camera installed in an elevator hall, and to detect a waiting customer staying in the elevator hall by an elevator hall waiting detector, wherein the input image and Image processing means for performing a processing operation during a first image processing period for generating a difference image from a background image, and performing processing operation during a second image processing period for generating a difference image between an input image and a background image This is achieved by providing an image processing unit and a unit for detecting a waiting customer based on an image processing result obtained by the image processing unit that operates during the first and second processing periods.

[Operation] The arithmetic means in the hall waiting-listening detecting apparatus according to the present invention removes a background image and a transient factor detected in the first processing period from an input image picked up by a television camera, and detects only waiting guests. Can be.

Further, according to the present invention, the door opening / closing state monitoring means identifies a time zone in which the moving object is highly likely to exist, and for this time zone, stops the waiter detection process or invalidates the detection result. It is possible to accurately detect a waiting customer.

Further, since the change of the external light and the illumination fluctuation are in a state very similar to the approach of the moving body, the present invention can similarly cope with the change of the external light and the illumination fluctuation.

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to prevent erroneous detection of a waiting customer due to a change in external light, lighting fluctuation, or a transient factor such as a person passing through a hall or a person getting off a car. Therefore, the reliability of the hall waiting customer detection device can be improved, and the efficiency of elevator group management control can be improved.

[Embodiment] Hereinafter, an embodiment of an elevator hall waiting passenger detection apparatus according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of one embodiment of the present invention,
FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the configuration and operation of the image processing unit 10, and FIG.
FIG. 4 is a timing chart of the image processing, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining the processing operation of one embodiment of the present invention.
1 and 2, 1 is an image processing device, 2 is a television camera, 3 is an elevator control device, 4 is a monitor television, 10 is an image processing unit, 11 is an image input unit, 12 to 16 are memories, 17 , A transmission processing unit; and 18, an image output unit.

As shown in FIG. 1, a hall waiting-listening detecting device according to an embodiment of the present invention includes an image processing device 1 and a television camera 2. The output of the hall waiter detecting device is transmitted to the elevator control device 3 and used for appropriate elevator assignment control. Further, the monitor television 4 is connected as necessary, and the image processing device 1
Used to check the operation of.

The image processing apparatus 1 is configured as follows, centering on the image processing unit 10, and performs the following operation.

The analog image information output from the TV camera 2 is
The image is converted into digital image information (hereinafter referred to as an input image) having a density of 0 to 255 by the image input unit 11 and stored in the input image memory 12.

The image processing unit 10 calculates a content of the input image memory 12 and a background image when no waiting customer is stored in the background image memory 13 in advance to detect a waiting customer.

The binary image memories 14 and 15 store the binary images output in the calculation process of the image processing unit 10. Work memory 16
Is used for temporary storage of the same operation.

The transmission processing unit 17 is an interface for performing communication between the image processing device 1 and the elevator control device 3.

As shown in FIG. 2, the image processing unit 10 includes a difference image extraction unit 10-1, a binarization processing unit 10-2, and a switch 10-3.
, An operation unit 10-4, and a waiting customer detection unit 10-5.

In the image processing unit 10 configured as described above, the first
In the third processing, first, the difference image extracting unit 10-1 obtains the absolute value of the difference between the content of the input image memory 12 and the content of the background image memory 13. As a result, it is possible to obtain a difference image in which the background portion has a low density (dark) and a portion other than the background, that is, the density of the waiting person is high (bright).

Next, the binarization processing unit 10-2 binarizes the difference image at a predetermined density level (for example, level 32), and converts
Create a value image. This binary image is stored in the binary image memory 14 via the switch 10-3.

The image processing unit 10 performs the same processing as described above in the second processing, and converts the binary image created by the binarization processing unit 10-2 into
This time, it is stored in another set of binary image memory 15.

After the above-described two processes, the arithmetic unit 10-4 obtains the logical product of the contents of the binary image memory 14 and the contents of the binary image memory 15. As a result, a new binary image is created in which only the overlapping portions of the binary image memories 14 and 15 are extracted. That is, this image is an image from which the image that has moved between the first processing and the second processing is removed.

The waiting customer detection unit 10-5 finds the area occupied by the object in the newly created binary image, converts this to the number of waiting customers, and outputs it.

As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, since a moving object other than a waiting person can be removed, the reliability of the hall waiting person detecting device can be improved.

The first binary image detection process described above (hereinafter, process 1)
FIG. 3 shows the timing relationship between the second binary image detection process and the waiting customer detection process (hereinafter referred to as process 2).

In FIG. 3, the processing cycle T includes a first period T1 from processing 1 to processing 2 and a period T2 from processing 2 to the next processing 1. Now, for example, if the moving object is a passer of the elevator hall, the walking speed is 2 km / h or more, and the moving distance is 3
Assuming that the distance is 0 cm or more, the first processing period T1 needs to be 0.54 seconds or less according to the following equation.

If the slow traveling speed of the waiting customer is 0.1 km / h or more, the second processing period T2 may be set to about 10 seconds or less as in the following equation.

In this case, a moving speed of 0.1 km / h or less is regarded as a background.

Next, the processing in the above-described embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

(1) It is determined whether or not the initial setting has been completed, and if not, various registers and the like in the image processing apparatus 1 are initialized, a background image is fetched and stored in the background image memory 13 (step). 100-102).

The capturing of the background in step 102 may use the method according to the related art described above.Also, every predetermined time, it is detected that there is no moving object, and the image at that time is captured as a background image. You may. Japanese Patent Application No. Hei.
There is a technique proposed in -49311, and it is preferable to use this technique.

In addition, this proposed technique takes a plurality of hall images in time series at predetermined time intervals, sequentially compares two images adjacent to each other in time series, and, for a continuous predetermined comparison floor, If the change in the image is equal to or less than a certain threshold, the one image is used as a background image.

(2) If the initial settings have been completed in step 100,
If the processing in step 102 is erroneously terminated, a new image is input, and processing for calculating the absolute value of the difference from the background image is performed. As a result, a difference image is created and stored in the work memory 16 (steps 103 and 104).

(3) The difference image obtained above is binarized with a threshold value of 32,
The obtained binary image is stored in the binary image memory 14 (step 105).

(4) Next, time adjustment for detecting a moving object is performed. Here, the timer is set to be a time obtained by subtracting the time required for the processing 1 in steps 103 to 105 from the first period T1 (step 106).

(5) After the timeout of step 106, steps 103 to 10
The same processing as in step 5 is performed, and the obtained binary image is stored in the binary image memory 15 (steps 107 to 109).

(6) The logical product of the contents of the binary image memory 14 and the contents of the binary image memory 15 is obtained. As a result, it is possible to obtain a new binary image from which the part largely different between the images input in steps 103 and 107, that is, the part where the moving object exists is removed (step 110).

(7) The number of waiting customers is obtained from the new binary image obtained in step 110 (step 111).

One embodiment of the present invention operates as described above,
It is possible to detect the exact number of waiting customers by removing moving objects other than waiting customers.

In the embodiment of the present invention described above, the binary image memory 15 can be used also as the work memory 16,
It is not necessary to provide it.

Next, the door opening / closing period is detected based on the information from the elevator control device, thereby bypassing the above-described waiting passenger detection process and notifying the fact to the effect that the elevator control device 2
, Another embodiment of the present invention will be described.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of another embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining transmission / reception information with an elevator control device, and FIG. FIG. 8 is a timing chart of the image processing, and FIG. 9 is a flowchart for explaining the processing operation of another embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 5, reference numeral 19 denotes a door open / closed state monitoring unit, and other reference numerals are the same as those in FIG.

In another embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 5, a door opening / closing state monitoring unit 19 detects an elevator door opening state based on information from an elevator control device 3 obtained through a transmission processing unit 17, and displays an image. The processing unit 10 is different from the above-described embodiment of the present invention in that the processing unit 10 determines whether or not to execute the waiting customer detection process, but in other respects, the configuration is the same as that of the above-described embodiment. Have been.

The information transmitted between the elevator control device 3 and the transmission processing section 17 of the hall waiting customer detection device has the contents as shown in FIG.

That is, from the elevator control device 3, a transmission header 120 indicating a slave station (hole waiting customer detection device) number, a detection result request, a command 121 such as tuning, a parameter 122 accompanying this command, a car position 123, and a door opening / closing state. Transmission information consisting of 124 is transmitted to the slave station. This transmission information is stored in a corresponding location in a communication buffer in the hall waiting customer detection device (not shown).

Also, the hall waiter detecting device returns a reception header 125 also serving as a response, the number of waiters (normal time), and the contents of the spare area 127. The elevator control device 2 stores this information as reception information in a corresponding location in the communication buffer.

Next, the processing operation of the door opening / closing state monitoring unit 19 will be described with reference to the flow chart shown in FIG.

(1) First, the car position information is searched from the transmission information from the elevator control device 3 shown in FIG. 6, and the car is located on the floor where the hall waiting detector is installed (hereinafter referred to as the floor). It is determined whether or not there is (Step 130).

(2) As a result of the determination in step 130, when there is a car on the floor, the door opening / closing information is searched to determine whether or not the door is open (step 131).

(3) If the result of determination in step 131 is that the door is open, the door open flag is set and the process is terminated (step 131).
132).

(4) If the car is not on the floor and the door is closed even if the car is on the floor in the judgments of steps 130 and 131,
Reset the door open flag and end the process (step 13
3).

Next, the period of the waiting customer detection process described in FIG.
The timing relationship between the cycle of the transmission processing described in the figure and the door open flag indicating the door open state will be described with reference to the timing chart shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 8, the transmission cycle T3 is set to be sufficiently shorter (T3 << T) than the waiting customer detection cycle T. This is because the time difference (time from the calculation of the number of waiting customers to the transmission) caused by the asynchronous execution of the waiting detection process and the transmission process is made as small as possible, and a single transmission error is caused by repeatedly transmitting the same information. This is because it is less susceptible to the effects of

In FIG. 8, for example, if the door open flag is set by the result of the ith transmission and the door open flag is reset by the result of the (i + n + 1) th transmission, the door open flag is It will be represented by the period of “1”.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the process according to the flow shown in FIG. 9 is executed with reference to this flag. Ninth
In the figure, the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 4 denote the same processes, and a description thereof will be omitted.

In the processing shown in FIG. 9, before executing the above-described processing 1 and processing 2, it is determined in step 112 whether or not the door open flag has been reset. As a result, if the door open flag has been reset, the processing of step 103 and subsequent steps is executed. If the flag has been set, the processing is ended by bypassing step 103 and subsequent steps.

Then, when the door open flag is set in the determination in step 112, in step 113, a message to the effect that the wait detection process is not executed is output to the elevator control device 3. This message is sent to the elevator controller 3 using the spare area 127 of the reception information shown in FIG.

The above processing is performed as shown by the dotted line in FIG.
After executing the processing of 113, the steps from step 103 onward may be performed. However, in this case, the content of the message to the elevator control device 3 needs to clarify that the processing result is the number of waiting customers with the door open.

According to the other embodiment of the present invention described above, it is possible to detect a time period during which the elevator door is open, that is, a time zone in which the moving object is likely to be present, thereby preventing erroneous detection of a waiting customer. Alternatively, the fact that the processing result is not accurate is reported to the elevator control device 3, whereby it is possible for the elevator control device to take measures such as ignoring the processing result.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to prevent erroneous detection of a waiting customer due to a change in lighting, a change in external light, or a transient factor such as a person passing through a hall or a person getting off a car. Therefore, the reliability of the hall waiting customer detection device can be improved, and the operation efficiency of the group management control device can be improved.

Further, according to the present invention, since the door opening / closing state of the elevator can be known, it is possible to perform control such that the operation of the hall waiting customer detection device when the door is open is stopped or the detection result when the door is open is ignored. It is possible to obtain highly reliable waiter information.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the configuration and operation of the image processing unit 10, FIG. 3 is a timing chart of image processing, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of another embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating transmission / reception information with an elevator control device, FIG. FIG. 8 is a flowchart for explaining the processing of the door open / closed state monitoring unit 19; FIG. 8 is a timing chart of the image processing;
FIG. 9 is a flowchart for explaining the processing operation of another embodiment of the present invention. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Image processing apparatus, 2 ... TV camera, 3 ... Elevator control apparatus, 4 ... Monitor television, 10 ... Image processing section, 11 ... Image input section, 12-16 ... Memory, 17 ...
Transmission processing unit 18 Image output unit 19 Door open / closed state monitoring unit.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Kiyoshi Nakamura 4026 Kuji-cho, Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture Inside Hitachi, Ltd.Hitachi Research Laboratory Co., Ltd. Inside the factory (56) References JP-A-49-122944 (JP, A) JP-A-52-112949 (JP, A) JP-A-3-138274 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. . ^6, DB name) B66B 3/00 H04N 7/18 G06F 15/62 380

Claims (6)

(57) [Claims] 1. An elevator hall waiting detector for processing image information output from a television camera installed in an elevator hall to detect a waiting customer staying in the elevator hall. Image processing means for performing a processing operation during a first image processing period for generating a difference image of the image processing means, and image processing means for performing a processing operation during a second image processing period for generating a difference image between the input image and the background image And, based on image processing results obtained by the image processing means operating during the first and second processing periods,
And a means for detecting a waiting customer. 2. An image processing result obtained by image processing means for performing a processing operation during the first and second processing periods is an image obtained by removing a background image from an image output from the television camera. 2. An elevator hall waiting passenger detection device according to claim 1, wherein 3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said means for detecting a waiting customer comprises: an image processing result obtained by an image processing means performing a processing operation during said first processing period during said second processing period; 3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein an inter-image operation is performed with an image processing result obtained by an image processing unit performing a processing operation during a period, and a waiting customer is detected based on the operation result. Elevator hall waiting detector. 4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the inter-image operation is an operation for obtaining a logical product of image processing results obtained by image processing means performing processing operations during the first and second processing periods. Item 4. The elevator waiting hall detection device according to claim 3. 5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising storage means for storing a processed image obtained by an image processing means performing a processing operation at least during said first processing period. Item 2. An elevator hall waiting customer detection device according to item 1. 6. The first processing period according to claim 1, wherein the first processing period is set to a time width capable of distinguishing a waiting person having a slight movement from a walking person. Item 5. The waiting hall detection device for an elevator according to Item 1 out of 5.