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WO2015028465A1 - Système et procédé d'aide à l'achat - Google Patents

Système et procédé d'aide à l'achat Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2015028465A1
WO2015028465A1 PCT/EP2014/068082 EP2014068082W WO2015028465A1 WO 2015028465 A1 WO2015028465 A1 WO 2015028465A1 EP 2014068082 W EP2014068082 W EP 2014068082W WO 2015028465 A1 WO2015028465 A1 WO 2015028465A1
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WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
person
request
assistance system
signal
requesting
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/EP2014/068082
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Njin-Zu Chen
Original Assignee
Koninklijke Philips N.V.
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Koninklijke Philips N.V. filed Critical Koninklijke Philips N.V.
Publication of WO2015028465A1 publication Critical patent/WO2015028465A1/fr

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Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/06—Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
    • G06Q10/063—Operations research, analysis or management
    • G06Q10/0631—Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
    • G06Q10/06311—Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00—Commerce
    • G06Q30/01—Customer relationship services
    • G06Q30/015—Providing customer assistance, e.g. assisting a customer within a business location or via helpdesk
    • G06Q30/016—After-sales
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00—Commerce
    • G06Q30/02—Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
    • G06Q30/0281—Customer communication at a business location, e.g. providing product or service information, consulting

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to a shopping assistance system.
  • the present invention further relates to a shopping assistance method.
  • Tracking systems exist that enable shops to count how many customers are in a shop at a given moment and adjust the staffing. These systems typically aim at counting the number of shoppers being present in total. The only way to check shoppers' intentions is indirectly, with statistical methods.
  • GB 2 342 208 A discloses a system and method for customer recognition using wireless identification and visual data transmission to point-of-sale terminals and other terminal types located in a commercial establishment.
  • a customer's visual image is taken by a camera as a customer enters the establishment and, that customer's identification number is obtained from a customer identification card via an interrogator antenna.
  • the customer data record is forwarded to point-of-sale terminals, store workstations, mobile terminals, or other I/O devices capable of displaying multiple customer records.
  • the establishment staff is able to access each of the customer records in order to visually identify customers as they enter the establishment, without the customers needing to announce themselves or otherwise advertise their presence.
  • the system according to the invention provides a means for assistance to seek for the customer.”
  • the act of entering the commercial establishment is interpreted as a request for assistance.
  • This is disadvantageous in that the shopping personnel may inadvertently approach customers that merely desire to look around at that point in time while other customers that are already in the commercial establishment would need to leave and reenter the shop in order to attract the attention of the shopping personnel.
  • EP2164026 discloses a gesture service platform which is being coupled to a plurality of motion sensor device and being adapted to receive raw sensor data from any of said motion sensor devices to store said raw sensor data and to provide any of said raw sensor data to any of a plurality of applications coupled to said gesture service platform.
  • a shopping assistance system comprising:
  • a request terminal for allowing a first person (requesting person) in an environment to request for assistance, the request terminal comprising at least one sensor for sensing the environment and issuing sense signals, including a sense signal with spatial information of the environment within a range of the sensor,
  • a service terminal coupled to the request terminal for in response to said request alerting a second person (assisting person),
  • the request terminal comprises
  • the signal processing unit for processing the sense signal and in response thereto generating a detection signal if it detects that the sense signal indicates that the requesting person makes a request gesture that is associated with a request for assistance, characterized in that the signal processing unit further includes a pattern recognition unit for processing the sense signal with spatial information in order to generate said detection signal, and in that the shopping assistence system further includes a feedback unit for providing feedback to the requesting person to acknowledge the request.
  • the sensor provides for a sense signal with spatial information, for example 3D information, of the environment within a range of the sensor.
  • the sensor may use visual radiation to sense the environment, e.g. visual radiation from a lighting installation arranged in the environment. However, this is not necessary.
  • the sensor may use infrared radiation irradiated by the requesting person.
  • the sensor is a time of flight (ToF) sensor.
  • This type of sensor typically includes an infrared radiation source which irradiates infrared radiation and measures the time delay with which the light reflected by the object is received as a measure for the depth.
  • Other gesture detection methods can be applied using ultrasound or WiFi.
  • the detection of the event that the requesting person makes a request gesture may be based on a single observation of a feature occurring in the range of the sensor that is representative for the request gesture. Alternatively, the detection may result from a dialog initiated by that observation. For example in response to a particular observation the shopping assistance system may provide a feedback to the requesting person indicative for said observation. Subsequently the requesting person may be enabled within a time-out period to indicate by a correction gesture that the identification of the observation as a request gesture is a false alarm. If no correction gesture is observed within the time-out period the shopping assistance system further processes the observation as a true request gesture. Preferably however, a confirmation gesture is required within a timeout window. In this way, initial false positives can be dropped without additional user intervention.
  • Feedback may be provided to the requesting person in various ways, e.g. by an auditory or visual signal and according to different ways.
  • lighting elements are distributed in the environment coupled to an addressing module that is arranged to illuminate a lighting element in the proximity of the requesting person.
  • a feedback signal maybe provided to a mobile device carried by the requesting person. In this way the feedback not visible to other customers.
  • a predetermined duration may be required for the feature to be interpreted as representative for the request gesture. In this way the risk of a false alarm can be minimized.
  • a request event is detected if and only if the observed feature corresponding to a raised hand is present for at least said predetermined duration.
  • the feature to be interpreted as request event corresponds to a periodic movement. This may further reduce the risk of a false alarm.
  • the service terminal Upon detection of a request event, action is taken causing the service terminal to signal the appropriate assisting person, e.g. a staff member of the shop.
  • the service terminal is a handheld device.
  • the handheld device may have various
  • the handheld device may provide one or more of an indication for the present location of the requesting person, a direction from the location of the carrier of the handheld device to the location of the requesting person, a distance between the location of the carrier of the handheld device to the location of the requesting person.
  • the shopping assistance system further includes a tracking unit.
  • the tracking unit tracks the location of the requesting person. In this way the requesting person does not need to stay at one location, but can at the meantime continue the shopping elsewhere in the shop until assistance is provided.
  • the shopping assistance system may include a tracking pattern memory that stores a profile enabling the tracking module to recognize the tracked person.
  • a tracking pattern memory that stores a profile enabling the tracking module to recognize the tracked person.
  • it may be possible to track persons without such a profile e.g. if only a limited number of persons is present in the shop. However confusion may arise if a larger number of persons is present, and their paths followed in the shop cross each other. On the basis of the profile the tracked person can be more easily recognized.
  • a profile of the requesting person generated upon detection of the request event may be used by the assisting person to recognize the requesting person.
  • the profile is for example a snapshot of the requesting person taken at the moment of detection of the request event.
  • the snapshot may be displayed on the service terminal, e.g. a handheld device carried by the assisting person. For this purpose it is not necessary that the profile is automatically recognized by the shopping assistance system.
  • an assisting person may have been assigned other requests which are still pending preceding a current request involving a longer waiting time.
  • a feedback signal provided to the requesting person may include an indication of an expected waiting time for support and/or a present number of customers to be served.
  • the shopping assistance system may further including a scheduling module for scheduling an order in which the signaled requests are handled.
  • the multiple requests may for example be handled in the order in which they were entered into a queue of requests for an assisting person.
  • the scheduling module may compute a shortest path along these requesting persons starting from the present location of that assisting person.
  • the assisting person can signal this to the scheduling module, for example using the service terminal, e.g. the handheld device.
  • the shopping assistance system may be capable of recognizing a cancel gesture and in response to such recognition cancel the request.
  • the shopping assistance system may be capable of detecting that a requesting person leaves the environment and in response to such detection cancel the request associated with that requesting person.
  • a do-it-yourself (DIY) store may have dedicated support staff for paints, wall decoration, tools, construction materials etc.
  • DIY do-it-yourself
  • additional measures may be provided.
  • a selection module is included arranged for selecting an appropriate assisting person in accordance with a location where the request gesture was made.
  • the appropriate staff member can be alerted. For example, if at the moment of the request the shopper is in the paint section of the DIY store, it is likely the staff member should be knowledgeable about paints.
  • the shopping assistance may include a registration unit for storing information concerning a history of issued requests.
  • the shopping assistance may further include a statistics unit that extracts statistical information from the stored information, such as the number of requests that were handled successfully, the number of requests that were cancelled due the customer leaving the shop etc.
  • the statistics unit may update the statistical information directly upon completion of each request handling procedure, without using stored information.
  • a shopping assistance method comprising:
  • sensing an environment by an electronic sensing system and in response generating sense signals said sense signals comprising a sense signal with spatial information of the environment within a range of the sensor, analyzing said sense signals, to determine if a requesting person present in said environment makes a request gesture,
  • the method upon detection of the event that the requesting person makes the request gesture, alerting an assisting person of this event characterized by processing the sense signal with spatial information by a pattern recognition proces in order to perform said detection, the method further comprising providing feedback to the requesting person upon such detection.
  • a record carrier comprising a program to be used with a shopping assistance system, the shopping assistance system including a request terminal and an service terminal, the request terminal including at least one sensor for sensing an environment and in response thereto generating sense signals, including a sense signal with spatial information of the environment within a range of the sensor and at least one signal processing unit, wherein the program causes the signal processing unit to analyze visual sense signals from the sensor to determine if a first person (requesting person) present in said environment makes a request gesture, wherein upon detection of the event that the requesting person makes the request gesture, a second person (assisting person) is alerted characterized in that said signal processing includes pattern recognition processing of said sense signal with spatial information by a pattern recognition system in order to to determine if said first person (requesting person) makes the request gesture and in that feedback is provided to the requesting person upon said detection and in that feedback is provided to the requesting person upon such detection.
  • Figure 1 shows an overview of an embodiment of a shopping assistance system according to the first aspect of the present invention
  • Figure 2 shows in more detail a first unit of the embodiment of the system of
  • Figure 3 shows in more detail a second unit of the embodiment of the system of Figure 1,
  • Figure 4 shows in more detail an alternative of the second unit
  • Figures 5A, 5B respectively show a handheld device in a first and a second operational mode
  • Figures 6A, 6B respectively show a fourth unit of two embodiments of a shopping assistance system according to the first aspect of the present invention
  • Figure 7 shows a fifth unit in an embodiment of a shopping assistance system according to the first aspect of the present invention
  • Figure 8 shows an embodiment of a shopping assistance method according to the second aspect of the present invention.
  • Fig. 1 schematically shows a shopping assistance system comprising a request terminal 10 for allowing a requesting person in an environment to request for assistance and a service terminal 20 coupled to the request terminal for in response to said request alerting an assisting person.
  • the request terminal 10 in the embodiment of Fig.1 comprises at least one sensor 12 for sensing the environment.
  • the at least one sensor issues a sense signal Si that is indicative for the sensed data.
  • the at least one sensor is coupled to at least one signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14 for processing the sense signal Si and in response thereto generating a detection signal Sd indicative for detection of a request gesture if it detects that the sense signal Si indicates that the requesting person makes a request gesture that is associated with a request for assistance.
  • the detection signal Sd indicative for detection of the request gesture further includes an indication of the position within the environment where the detected gesture was made.
  • the detection signal Sd further may include a time-stamp indicative for the time of detection of the detected gesture. Any sensor 12 may be used provided that it provides data suitable to recognize gestures.
  • the shopping assistance system further includes a tracking unit 16.
  • the tracking unit 16 is arranged to track the location of the requesting person upon receipt of a detection signal Sd indicative for detection of the request gesture.
  • the detection signal Sd of the signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14 provides information indicative for the current position of persons to be tracked.
  • the signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14 automatically starts providing this information upon detection of the request gesture. Based on this information the tracking unit 16 maintains the actual position of the person associated with each request. Once a request is handled the tracking unit 16 issues a cancel signal Sc causing the signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14 the tracking of the person that issued the request.
  • the shopping assistance system shown in Fig.1 further includes a registration unit 18 for storing information concerning a history of issued requests.
  • the service terminal 20 is a handheld device that is wirelessly coupled to the request terminal 10 for in response to a request alerting an assisting person.
  • the assisting person is typically a personnel member.
  • each personnel member has such a proper service terminal 20.
  • the request terminal is arranged to wirelessly transmit a request alert signal So to the handheld device 20.
  • the request terminal 10 may transmit a request alert signal So upon issuance of the detection signal Sd indicative for detection of the request gesture.
  • the request terminal 10 may include a request queue and in case the assisting person is busy handling an earlier request, a transmission of the request alert signal So for the later request may be postponed until handling of the earlier request is completed.
  • a transmission of the request alert signal So may be cancelled if it becomes apparent that the requesting person in the meantime has explicitly cancelled the request or has left the environment.
  • the requesting person issuing the request may also carry a portable device 30, for example a portable device owned by the requesting person, such as a mobile phone or a portable device temporarily made available by the owner of the environment.
  • the request terminal 10 transmits a feedback signal Sf to the requesting person that acknowledges that the request gesture is recognized.
  • the feedback signal Sf may comprise an indication for the waiting time, and/or for a number of predecessors in a waiting queue.
  • the requesting person may provide a response Sr, for example to cancel the request.
  • the signal processing and pattern recognition system is capable of recognizing gestures that correlate with shoplifting actions by a first person and of issuing a detection signal indicative for this event to alert a second person, for example to staff member in the proximity of the location of the first person.
  • the shopping assistance system has a disabling module 31 for preventing the feedback facility 30 from providing feedback signals to the first person.
  • Fig.2 shows a embodiment of the signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14.
  • the unit 14 has an input 14i for receiving the video signal Si.
  • the video signal Si may be digital signal.
  • the video signal Si may be an analog signal.
  • the unit 14 may have an A/D converter to convert the analog input signal Si into a digital signal.
  • the system 14 has a feature extraction module 141 that extracts characteristic features, within the image perceived by the sensor 12.
  • the feature extraction module 141 may for example extract image features that result from a difference between a background image or image features that result from a previous image. Also other image feature extraction methods known as such may be employed.
  • the feature extraction module 141 provides an output signal Sft that is indicative of parameter values representing the extracted features.
  • the feature extraction modulel41 also provides an output signal Spos that is indicative of a position where the extracted feature is detected.
  • the unit 14 further includes a storage module 142 that includes parameter values for one or more reference gestures including the request gesture.
  • the system further comprises a detection module 143 that compares the parameter values indicated by the output signal Sft with parameter values stored in said storage module 142 indicated by reference signal Sref. Based on this comparison the detection module 143 determines whether the detected features correspond to a gesture, and if the storage module 142 includes parameter values for more than one reference gesture, it determines which reference gesture most closely corresponds to the perceived gesture, on the basis of their parameter values. In response the detection module 143 issues a pattern detection signal Spd that is indicative of the detected gesture. In case parameter values for only one reference gesture (i.e. the request gesture) are stored in the storage module 142 a binary pattern detection signal Spd is sufficient. The detection module 143 may determine that no gesture is detected if the perceived parameter values deviate to much from the parameter values from any of the reference gestures.
  • the signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14 further includes a tracking pattern memory module 144 that stores a profile enabling the tracking unit 16 to recognize the tracked person.
  • the detection module 143 Upon detection of a request gesture by the detection module 143, the detection module 143 causes the tracking pattern memory module 144 to therein store pattern data that is representative for the requesting person associated with the request gesture.
  • pattern data may be extracted for example from image data obtained immediately before the request gesture was detected. Differences in that image data from image data taken from a reference state of the environment when nobody is present at the location where the gesture was detected are indicative for said requesting person.
  • the pattern data may for example relate to a dominant color or a shape detected at that location.
  • the detection module 143 can locate the pattern in a similar way as a in which it detects a gesture. The detection module 143 may subsequently report the location wherein the pattern corresponding to the requesting person is found within the environment. Multiple requesting persons may be tracked by storing for each requesting person a corresponding pattern.
  • the detection module 143 may regularly report a pattern detection signal Spd and the associated position signal Spos to the tracking unit.
  • the detection module 143 may report the detected position for a pattern associated with a particular requesting person upon request by the tracking unit 16.
  • the tracking unit 16 may for example request such a detected position, when a requesting person has become first to being served. In that case the tracking unit 16 may submit the request including an indication of the requesting person that is to be tracked.
  • a cancellation signal Sc associated with a serviced request is received from tracking unit 16 the pattern data corresponding to the person associated with the request is removed from the pattern memory module 144 so that the process of tracking is effectively finished.
  • the signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14 also includes a time stamp module 145 that indicates the time of detection.
  • the tracking unit 16 may assign a time upon receipt of a detection signal.
  • the tracking unit 16 shown in more detail in Fig.3, maintains an overview of pending assistance requests.
  • the tracking unit includes a storage module 161 and a processing module 162.
  • the storage module 161 maintains for each request an entry with the following information:
  • this value is continuously updated by the processing module 162, or may be
  • the processing module 162 maintains this information on the basis of the detection signals Sd received from the detection module 143 of the signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14.
  • the processing modulel62 may include a selection component 1621, 1622 as shown in more detail in Fig. 4, arranged for selecting an appropriate assisting person in accordance with a location where the request gesture was made.
  • the storage module 161 comprises a first storage space 1611 with a lookup table having information indicating which goods are stored at which location. Based on the location indicated by the position signal, the selection component 1621 determines a type of goods associated with the position where the request gesture was detected. Based on this information as indicated by the signal ReqType, a second selection component 1622 selects a member from the personnel that can best handle the request.
  • the second selection component 1622 uses a lookup table stored in a second storage space 1612 of the storage module 161 that contains information related to the shops personnel.
  • the information may comprise for each personnel member a respective product range, a present location of the member of personnel, an indication whether the member is present or not and a number of pending requests for said personnel member.
  • a lookup table stored in a second storage space 1612 of the storage module 161 that contains information related to the shops personnel.
  • the information may comprise for each personnel member a respective product range, a present location of the member of personnel, an indication whether the member is present or not and a number of pending requests for said personnel member.
  • the number of pending requests for said personnel member In case only one member of personnel is present that is capable to handle the request that member is selected as the person to provide assistance. If more than one member would be capable, further considerations may be taken into account to minimize overall waiting time, e.g. the number of pending requests for said personnel member as well as the distance between the current position of the personnel member and
  • selection of one of a plurality from personnel members may be postponed until one of those personnel members has finished handling of an earlier request.
  • the personnel member involved signals the processing module 161 the event of finishing the request by a signal Sfin (Fig. 1). Upon receipt of this signal Sfin the processing module 161 removes the entry related to said request from the list of requests.
  • the list may be ordered as a queue so that requests are handled strictly in order of arrival. Alternatively other considerations may be taken into account, such as the proximity of the personnel member to the requestors.
  • the tracking unit 16 is coupled to a registration unit 18 for storing information concerning a history of issued requests. Each time a request is handled the information regarding the request is handled.
  • the information may include:
  • a request may be terminated if the requestor leaves the environment, gestures or otherwise indicates that the request is cancelled or if a member of personnel has indicated that the request is handled, a time duration between the first and the second point in time, In case the information includes the first and the second point in time as well of the time duration, one of these is redundant.
  • the request is considered to be handled successfully if the member of personnel has signaled this with the signal Sfin. Nevertheless, the member of personnel may enter additional comments related to the request, e.g. about the type of request.
  • Question types may be for example a question for a location of a product, a question about the operation of a product, a question about which product select etc.
  • a request is considered to be handled not successfully if the requestor has made a cancel gesture indicating that the request is cancelled. In particular the request is not considered handled successful if the requestor has left the environment without having signaled a cancelling or without the request being indicated as completed by a personnel member.
  • a statistics unit 19 is coupled to the registration unit 18. Based on the information stored in the registration unit 18 the statistics unit 19 provides statistics relating to previously issued requests for assistance.
  • the statistics includes at least one of a fraction of successfully handled requests, a distribution of locations from which the requests are issued.
  • the first statistical information is useful for the shopkeeper to determine whether an appropriate number of personnel is available.
  • the second statistical information may be an indication in which locations in particular the presence of personnel is required.
  • statistics information may be provided related to the type of requests from the customers. This can be used as a guideline for appropriate education of the personnel.
  • the handheld device 20 may have various operational modes.
  • a first operational mode shown in Fig. 5A the handheld device provides information to assist the assisting person in navigating towards and/or identifying the requesting person.
  • the handheld device 20 may have a display 200 with one or more of an overview window 201 that in said first operational mode displays a map of the environment.
  • the overview 201 may further show the position Prp of the requesting person and the position Pap of the assisting person.
  • the display 200 may further have a direction window 202 that in the first operational mode displays a global direction in which the assisting person has to go to encounter the requesting person.
  • the display 200 further has distance window 203 that in the first operational mode indicates the distance between the requesting person and the assisting person.
  • the display 200 further has an identification window 204 that in the first operational mode enables the assisting person to recognize the requesting person. This may be favorable if various persons are cluttered at the same location.
  • the first operational mode may have a first and a second sub-mode, wherein the first sub-mode is activated if the distance between the requesting person and the assisting person is larger than a predetermined distance and the second sub-mode is activated if the distance between the requesting person and the assisting person is less than or equal to the predetermined distance, e.g. 5 m.
  • the display shows one or more of the items 201, 202, 203 to allow the assisting person to walk into the proper direction
  • the second sub-mode thereof shows the identification window enabling the assisting person to recognize the requesting person.
  • the assisting person once having identified the requesting person may signal this event to the shopping assistance system.
  • the handheld device assumes a second operational mode.
  • the assisting person is enabled to enter data relating to the request.
  • the assisting person may for example specify the type of request, e.g. touching soft-button 206a if the requesting person asks where a product can be found, by touching soft-button 206b if the requesting person asks information about a product and by touching soft-button 206c if another question is posed.
  • the assisting person may enter an additional comment that may appear in window 207.
  • the handheld device 20 may have a speech interface, a virtual or physical keyboard or other text input means.
  • the assisting person may indicate that the request is completely addressed by touching the soft-button 205 or by other input means.
  • the handheld device 20 issues a signal Sfin (See Fig. 1) to report the completion of the handling of the request to the request terminal 10.
  • Sfin See Fig. 1
  • the handheld device then assumes the first operational mode in order to guide the assisting person to the following requesting person.
  • the handheld device 20 may assume a third, standby mode.
  • a plurality of sensors 12a, 12b, 12c, ...,12n may be arranged.
  • the sensors are coupled to a stitching unit 13 that merges the individual image information streams Sia, Sib, Sic, ...,Sin received from each of these sensors into a single integrated image information stream Si to be processed by the signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14 in order to generate an event report stream Sd.
  • each visual sensor 12a, ..., 12n may transmit its image information stream Sia, ..., Sin to a respective signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14a, ..,14n.
  • the signal processing and pattern recognition unit 14a, ..,14n identify relevant events with respective event report streams Sda,...,Sdn in the range visible to their respective sensors 12a,...,12n.
  • a merging unit 15 merges the event report streams Sda,...,Sdn from the units 14a,...,14b into a merged event report stream Sd. In case ranges of the sensors 12a, ..., 12n overlap, certain events may be reported more than once.
  • duplications can be identified by the merging unit 15 as event reports of the same type of event at the same location and the same time.
  • the merging unit 15 subsequently outputs the reports received from each of the units 14a,...,14n leaving out the duplicates.
  • the sensors 12a, ..., 12n are integrated with their respective signal processing and pattern unit 14a,...,14n or closely arranged near each other.
  • the image information streams Sia,...,Sin, involving a relatively high data- rate need only be carried over a relatively short distance and longer distance connections are only required for event report streams Sda,...,Sdn issued by the signal processing and pattern recognition units 14a, ..,14n.
  • the event report streams Sda,...,Sdn have a relatively low data- rate as compared to the image information streams Sia,...,Sin.
  • a composed embodiment a plurality of arrangements is provided as shown in Fig. 5A, each providing an integrated event report stream Sd for a respective subset of sensors.
  • a merging unit 15 as shown in Fig. 5B is provided that merges the integrated event report streams Sd from these arrangements into a merged event report stream.
  • Fig.7 shows an feedback unit 40 that may be used in addition or as an alternative to the portable device 30.
  • the feedback unit 40 has a control module 41, a column addressing module 42, a row addressing module 43 and a plurality of lighting modules 44 addressed by these addressing units arranged at ceiling 50.
  • the control module 41 receives information from the request terminal 10 representative for a location (xr,yr) of and issued request for assistance. In response the control module 41 causes the column addressing module 42 to send an activation signal to the column of lighting modules 44 closest to the value xr and causes the row addressing module 43 to send an activation signal to the row of lighting modules 44 closest to the value yr.
  • the lighting modules 44 are arranged to activate their lighting element if they receive an activation signal both from the column addressing module 42 and the row addressing module 43.
  • the request terminal 10 includes a tracking unit 16 the request terminal 10 may transmit the current location of the requesting person to the control module 41.
  • both navigation assistance means may be used in combination.
  • a lighting module 44 may flash with a frequency that depends on an expected waiting time.
  • the activated lighting module 44 may be on continuously from the moment a request event is detected and start to flash once the expected waiting time is less than a predetermined value, e.g. less than a minute.
  • different colors may be used to signal different states.
  • Fig. 8 schematically shows a method according to the second aspect of the invention. As shown therein, the method comprises:

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Abstract

L'invention concerne un système d'aide à l'achat comprenant un terminal de demande (10), un terminal de service (20) et une unité de rétroaction (30, 40). Le terminal de demande (10) permet à une première personne (demandeur) dans un environnement de demander une aide au moyen d'un geste de demande. Le terminal de demande (10) comprend au moins un capteur (12) permettant de détecter l'environnement et d'émettre un signal de capteur (Si), au moins un système de traitement de signaux et de reconnaissance de motifs (14) permettant de traiter le signal de capteur (Si) et, en réponse à celui-ci, de générer un signal de détection (Sd) s'il détecte que le signal de capteuf (Si) indique que le demandeur effectue le geste de demande. En réponse à ladite détection, le terminal de service (20) couplé au terminal de demande alerte une seconde personne (aidant), et l'unité de rétroaction (30, 40) fournit une rétroaction au demandeur pour accuser réception de la demande.
PCT/EP2014/068082 2013-09-02 2014-08-26 Système et procédé d'aide à l'achat WO2015028465A1 (fr)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
EP13182631 2013-09-02
EP13182631.5 2013-09-02

Publications (1)

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WO2015028465A1 true WO2015028465A1 (fr) 2015-03-05

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Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB2610022A (en) * 2021-06-04 2023-02-22 Indyme Solutions Llc Devices for touchless gesture based customer assistance systems

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GB2342208A (en) * 1998-09-25 2000-04-05 Fujitsu Ltd System and method for customer recognition
US20030107650A1 (en) * 2001-12-11 2003-06-12 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Surveillance system with suspicious behavior detection
WO2008008505A2 (fr) * 2006-07-14 2008-01-17 Objectvideo, Inc. Analytique de vidéo de surveillance d'un commerce de détail
US20090319181A1 (en) * 2008-06-20 2009-12-24 Microsoft Corporation Data services based on gesture and location information of device
EP2164026A1 (fr) * 2008-09-15 2010-03-17 Alcatel, Lucent Plateforme de service de gestes
JP2011008719A (ja) * 2009-06-29 2011-01-13 Yahoo Japan Corp 販売支援サーバ、販売支援システム及び販売支援方法

Patent Citations (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB2342208A (en) * 1998-09-25 2000-04-05 Fujitsu Ltd System and method for customer recognition
US20030107650A1 (en) * 2001-12-11 2003-06-12 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Surveillance system with suspicious behavior detection
WO2008008505A2 (fr) * 2006-07-14 2008-01-17 Objectvideo, Inc. Analytique de vidéo de surveillance d'un commerce de détail
US20090319181A1 (en) * 2008-06-20 2009-12-24 Microsoft Corporation Data services based on gesture and location information of device
EP2164026A1 (fr) * 2008-09-15 2010-03-17 Alcatel, Lucent Plateforme de service de gestes
JP2011008719A (ja) * 2009-06-29 2011-01-13 Yahoo Japan Corp 販売支援サーバ、販売支援システム及び販売支援方法

Cited By (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB2610022A (en) * 2021-06-04 2023-02-22 Indyme Solutions Llc Devices for touchless gesture based customer assistance systems
GB2610022B (en) * 2021-06-04 2024-12-18 Indyme Solutions Llc Devices for touchless gesture based customer assistance systems

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