JPH11281754A - Inventory management device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an inventory management device which can easily confirm the out-of-stock states of objects to be managed. SOLUTION: An inventory management device is provided with marks 2 formed by printing ink having high reflectance against light rays in the infrared region, objects 1 to be managed arranged on the marks 2, an image pickup means 5 which picks up the images of the marks 2, an image processor 7 which identifies the marks 2 from the images picked up by means of the image pickup means 5, a central arithmetic processor 9 which discriminates that the objects 1 exist when the marks 2 are not identified or one of the object 1 does not exist, namely, the object 1 is out of stock and, at the same time, acquires the information on the nonexisting object 1 from the identified mark 2 when the corresponding mark 2 is identified, and an auxiliary storage device 15 which stores the acquired information on the objects 1.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an inventory management device for automatically recognizing and managing the inventory status of pamphlets on display shelves of pamphlets and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, inventory management of display shelves for pamphlets is performed by checking whether or not pamphlets remain on display shelves, and if they are gone, newly adding and arranging pamphlets at predetermined positions. It was done by.

[0003]

However, in the manual inventory management as described above, each display shelf is checked and checked to confirm that the stock is out of stock. Work is needed,
There was a problem that it required labor and time. In particular, this operation is troublesome when a plurality of display shelves for the pamphlets are arranged at separate locations.

[0004] The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an inventory management device capable of easily confirming out of stock.

[0005]

According to the first aspect of the present invention,
A mark printed with ink having a high reflectance with respect to light in the infrared region, a management target arranged on the mark, an image pickup unit for picking up the mark, and the mark distinguished from the image obtained by the image pickup unit If the mark is not identified, it is determined that the managed object exists and is in stock. If the mark is identified, it is determined that the managed object does not exist and there is no stock. A central processing unit that acquires information on a management object that does not exist from the storage device, and an auxiliary storage device that stores the obtained information on the management object.

[0006]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an inventory management device according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a mark. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a procedure of inventory management, in which (a) shows a procedure for automatically detecting inventory, and (b) shows a procedure in which the user checks the inventory status. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure for reading a mark. FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a binarized image of a mark read by the imaging unit. FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a procedure for recognizing a mark. FIG. 6A shows a procedure for identifying a barcode guide, and FIG. 6B shows a procedure for calculating a sample point. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a method of calculating sample points.

As shown in FIG. 1, the inventory control device according to the present embodiment includes a mark 2 printed with ink having a high reflectance with respect to light in the infrared region (hereinafter, referred to as invisible ink); An imaging device 5 comprising an infrared illuminating device 3 and a CCD camera or the like having an infrared transmitting filter 4 for imaging a mark 2 attached to a display shelf T or the like on which a pamphlet P as the management target 1 is displayed; An image processing device 7 for identifying the mark 2 from the image obtained by the imaging device 5;
, A central processing unit 9 for acquiring the information of the pamphlet P, a communication I / F (interface) 11 for transmitting the processing result, a center processing unit 13 for receiving and managing the processing result, and an auxiliary for storing the information. A storage device 15;
An input device 16 for the user to give various instructions to the center processing device 13 and a display device 17 for displaying the stock status of the pamphlet P.

The imaging device 5 may be of a wide-angle type so that a large number of objects to be managed 1 can be imaged at one time, or a drive means capable of arbitrarily changing the imaging direction is provided. May be used.

[0009] A mark 2 (two-dimensional bar code) as shown in FIG. 2 printed using invisible ink is attached in advance to a display shelf T of a pamphlet P corresponding to the object 1 to be managed. The pamphlet P is arranged on the corresponding mark 2. Therefore, the mark 2 is hidden by the pamphlet P when the pamphlet P remains in stock, but can be imaged by the imaging device 5 when the pamphlet P runs out.

As shown in FIG. 2, the mark 2 is surrounded by bar code guides 1 to 3 necessary for calculating the position, orientation, sample point, and the like of the mark 2, and the bar code guides 1 to 3. And a bit information area arranged in the. The bit information area according to the present embodiment is composed of 16 squares, and it is possible to give an information amount of 2 to the 16th power depending on whether or not to apply invisible ink to each square. In the present embodiment, information on the management target 1 arranged on the mark 2 is attached to the bit information area of the mark 2. Therefore, it is possible to recognize which brochure P is out of stock from the information in the bit information area. The mark 2 may be printed on a transparent sticker or the like, and the sticker may be attached to the display shelf T. The image processing device 7 recognizes whether or not the mark 2 exists in the imaging area of the imaging device 5. If there is, the mark 2 is extracted from the input image, and the information written in the bit information area is obtained.

A procedure for automatically managing the inventory of the pamphlet P will be described with reference to FIG. First, reading processing of the mark 2 is performed by the imaging device 5 at predetermined time intervals. Then, automatic detection of inventory is performed based on the read information to determine the presence or absence of inventory, and thereafter, information stored in the database is updated based on the read information. By referring to the information written in the database, the user can check the latest stock status while staying. Note that a mark may be read at an arbitrary time by inputting an instruction from the user.

The procedure for reading the mark 2 will be described with reference to FIG. When the pamphlet P does not exist, the infrared light is reflected by the mark 2 attached to the display shelf T, and the reflected infrared light is reflected by the infrared transmitting filter 4. Is input to the imaging device 5 via the. At this time, since the visible light is cut by the infrared transmission filter 4 and is not input to the imaging device 5, it is hardly affected by indoor lighting, and the mark 2 can be easily and accurately extracted.

Next, in order to recognize whether or not the mark 2 exists in the imaging area, binarization and labeling of the image are performed. When the pamphlet P is out of stock and the mark 2 attached to the display shelf T is imaged by the imaging means 5, when the binarized process is performed on the imaged image, an image as shown in FIG. 5 is obtained. Will be. Since the mark 2 has a high reflectance with respect to infrared light, a relatively high threshold value can be set, and noise can be prevented from being mixed into the binarized image. Next, a labeling process for assigning a number to each region is performed on the binarized image. Here, a commonly used labeling process is performed.

Next, the bar code guides 1 to 3 of the mark 2 are identified from the extracted area. Barcode guide 1
One of the procedures for identifying 3 will be described with reference to FIG. The barcode guide 1 is composed of a pair of elongated, equal length segments that are orthogonal to each other, and is identified using this feature. First, the ratio between the perimeter and the area of each region of the extracted image (hereinafter referred to as “slimness”) is calculated. If the perimeter is larger than the area, it can be said that the area is a slender area. Therefore, by this processing, a pair of adjacent regions having a “slim length” larger than a predetermined value is identified as the barcode guide 1. When the barcode guide 1 is identified, the barcode guide 2 and the barcode guide 3 are identified by the same procedure. In the process up to this point, if the bar code guides 1 to 3 cannot be identified at all, it is determined that the mark 2 does not exist,
It is determined that the pamphlet P is present in the display shelf T as "in stock".

Next, in the above procedure, when the mark 2 is present and "out of stock" is set, a process for obtaining the information is performed (see FIG. 7B). First, in order to calculate sample points used for reading the bit information area of the mark 2, break points (corner portions) of the barcode guides 1 to 3 are extracted. The break point is determined by calculating the midpoint of the thinned area after performing the thinning processing. Next, sample points are relatively calculated from the coordinates of the break points of the barcode guides 1 to 3 calculated by the image processing. That is, each bar code guide 1-3
The sample point of each cell in the binarized image corresponding to the intersection of the dotted line as shown in FIG. 8 is obtained from the predetermined relative positional relationship between the coordinates of the break point and the sample point. Then, the value of "1" or "0" is obtained based on whether or not the invisible ink is applied to the sample point.

Next, the process after the identification of the mark 2 will be described. Which pamphlet P corresponds to the identified mark 2 is recognized by comparing it with information in a database in the auxiliary storage device 15. At this time, information in the database such as which mark 2 is recognized and when is updated.

As shown in FIG. 3B, when the user wants to know whether or not the pamphlet P is in stock, a user request is generated by the input device 16 and the database in the center processing device 13 is referred to. . Then, information about the pamphlet P is returned in a predetermined format and displayed on the display device 17. Thereby, the latest stock status of the pamphlet P can be confirmed.

[0018]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, a mark printed with ink having a high reflectance with respect to light in the infrared region, and a management object arranged on the mark. Imaging means for imaging the mark, an image processing apparatus for identifying the mark from the image obtained by the imaging means, and if the mark is not identified, it is determined that the management target exists and there is inventory, and the mark is identified. If the management target is not present, it is determined that the management target does not exist and there is no stock, and the central processing unit that acquires information on the non-existing management target from the identified landmark, and an auxiliary that stores the obtained information on the management target Since the storage device is provided, information on the management target in the case where the management target is in stock / not in stock and when the management target is out of stock is automatically detected, so that the user can easily check the stock out without looking around. Inventory tube An effect that it is possible to provide a device. In addition, since the mark and infrared light attached to the object to be managed are invisible, there is no problem in operation, and since the light in the infrared region is illuminated, the inventory state can be checked even in a dark place without room lighting such as at night. This has the effect.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an inventory management device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a mark.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a procedure of inventory management;
(A) shows the procedure for automatically detecting the stock, and (b) shows the procedure for the user to check the stock status.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure for reading a mark.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a binarized image of a mark read by an imaging unit.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a procedure for recognizing a landmark, (a) showing a procedure for identifying a bar code guide,
(B) shows a procedure for calculating sample points.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a method for calculating sample points.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Management object 2 Mark 3 Infrared illumination device 4 Infrared transmission filter 5 Imaging means 7 Image processing device 9 Central processing unit 13 Center processing unit 15 Auxiliary storage device

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Eiichi Fukui 1048 Kazuma Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A mark printed with an ink having a high reflectance with respect to light in an infrared region, a management target arranged on the mark, an image pickup unit for picking up the mark, and an image pickup unit. An image processing apparatus for identifying a mark from an image, and when the mark is not identified, it is determined that the management target exists and is in stock, and when the mark is identified, it is determined that the management target does not exist and there is no stock. And a central processing unit for acquiring information on the non-existent management target from the identified landmark, and an auxiliary storage device for storing the obtained information on the management target. .