EP-4740196-A1 - SYSTEM WITH IMAGE CAPTURING MEANS

Abstract

A system, in particular an auto-commissioning system comprising an image capturing means, such as a camera, arranged to capture an image of an area, and a processing means configured to perform the steps of controlling the image capturing means so as to capture a sequence of images over time, processing said captured sequence of images over time to detect at least one scene element in said area, selecting at least one application from a list of applications, such as a traffic monitoring application or a parking monitoring application, based on a result of the processing and configuring the at least one application based on the captured sequence.

Inventors

• BANDEIRA, Lourenço

Assignees

• Schreder Iluminaçao SA

Dates

Publication Date

20260513

Application Date

20240704

Claims (20)

1. 1. A system, in particular an auto-commissioning system comprising an image capturing means, such as a camera, arranged to capture an image of an area, and a processing means configured to perform the steps of: controlling the image capturing means so as to capture a sequence of images over time; processing said captured sequence of images over time to detect at least one scene element in said area; selecting at least one application from a list of applications, such as a traffic monitoring application or a parking monitoring application, based on a result of the processing; configuring the at least one application based on the captured sequence.
2. 2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the step of processing comprises determining a position and/or a type of the at least one scene element.
3. 3. The system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the step of processing comprises determining whether a scene element of the at least one scene element is static or is moving, and optionally determining a moving direction of the scene element if it is moving.
4. 4. The system according to any of the previous claims, wherein the processing is performed using semantic segmentation.
5. 5. The system according to any of the previous claims, wherein the processing comprises, for a predetermined type of scene element, determining a density of scene elements of said type in said area.
6. 6. The system according to any of the previous claims, wherein the at least one scene element comprises at least one of: an object such as a vehicle or a person or a tree, a parking lot, a parking space, a road, a bus stop, a pavement, green area, school/hospital, pedestrian crossing, a loading bay, a curbside.
7. 7. The system according to any of the previous claims, wherein the at least one application comprises at least one of: a traffic monitoring application configured to monitor traffic in said area, such as a counting application, a ghost driver detection application, a traffic violation detection application; a parking monitoring application; a use type detection application configured to detect one or more use types of said area, such as a curbside use, e.g. use as a terrace, a bicycle parking use, a (un)loading area use, etc.; a user type detection application configured to detect one or more user types in said area, such as a child, animal, wheelchair user, elderly people, etc.
8. 8. The system according to any of the previous claims, wherein the step of processing comprises determining a number and/or a position and/or a direction of at least one of: lanes of a road and/or parking spots in the area, based on the captured sequence of images, and wherein the step of configuring of the at least one application comprises setting said determined number and/or position and/or direction of at least one of: lanes of a road and/or parking spots.
9. 9. The system according to any of the previous claims, wherein the step of processing comprises determining one or more counting locations for counting an object, such as a moving object like a vehicle or a person, in said area based on the captured sequence of images, and wherein the step of configuring comprises setting said determined one or more counting locations.
10. 10. The system according to any of the previous claims, wherein the processing means is further configured to install the at least one application, after having selected the at least one application, wherein optionally the installing of the at least one application comprises the downloading of the at least one application from a remote server and/or a cloud server.
11. 11. The system according to any of the previous claims, comprising a non-transitory computer- readable storage medium, one or more of the applications of the list of applications being pre-stored and/or preinstalled thereon.
12. 12. The system according to any of the previous claims, wherein the processing means is configured to send to an operator a message indicating a selected application and/or a configuration parameter to be used in the selected application, and optionally to receive a confirmation message of the operator that the selected application is to be installed or used and/or that the configuration parameter is to be used for configuring the selected application.
13. 13. A system, preferably an auto-commissioning system comprising an image capturing means, such as a camera, arranged to capture an image of an area, and a processing means configured to perform the steps of: controlling the image capturing means so as to capture a sequence of images over time; processing said captured sequence of images over time to determine a position and type of scene elements in said area at consecutive moments in time; configuring at least one application which uses the image capturing means, based on the determined position and type of scene elements in said area at consecutive moments in time.
14. 14. The system according to claim 13, wherein the step of configuring comprises the selecting of at least one first sub-area in the area where a same type of object is detected multiple times at different locations within the at least one first sub-area as at least one suitable subarea for use in the at least one application.
15. 15. The system according to the previous claim, wherein the at least one first sub-area comprises a plurality of first sub-areas and wherein the configuring further comprises selecting one of the plurality of first sub-areas as the suitable sub-area for use in the at least one application.
16. 16. The system according to claims 14 or 15, wherein the selecting of the at least one suitable sub-area is based on any one or more of: a density of the determined positions of scene elements, an accuracy of the determined positions and/or types of scene elements, the number of detections of an object of a same type in a sub-area.
17. 17. The system according to any one of claims 14-16, wherein a first application of the at least one application is configured to count a number of moving scene elements of a predetermined type in the at least one first sub-area.
18. 18. The system according to claim 17, wherein said area comprises a road and the first application of the at least one application is configured to count a number of vehicles using the road in the at least one first sub-area.
19. 19. The system according to claim 18, wherein said at least one first sub-area comprises one or more lanes of the road.
20. 20. The system according to any one of claims 13-19, wherein the configuring comprises the selecting in the area of at least one second sub-area where a same type of object is detected multiple times at a same location within the at least one second sub-area as a suitable subarea for use in the at least one application.

Description

SYSTEM WITH IMAGE CAPTURING MEANS FIELD OF INVENTION The field of the invention relates to the field of systems with an image capturing means, in particular auto-commissioning systems with an image capturing means, and more in particular luminaire systems, such as outdoor luminaire systems, or traffic light systems, including an image capturing means. Such systems are preferably part of a network, and in particular a luminaire network such as an outdoor luminaire network. BACKGROUND Luminaires, especially outdoor luminaires, have long been present worldwide to provide the lighting of cities, industrial plants, private or public parking lots, etc. More and more, these luminaires become smarter, in that they are able to operate in networks which are capable of automatically exchanging information between the luminaires and/or with a remote entity. These smart luminaires are already present today in densely populated areas, such as streets, roads, paths, parking lots, parks, campuses, train stations, airports, harbors, beaches, etc., of cities around the world, from small towns to metropoles. Luminaires may be mounted on long poles or placed at a significant height such as to illuminate wider portions of an area such as a road or a parking space. More and more, luminaires are provided with additional sensing devices, such as cameras, that take advantage of the height of the luminaire and the pole they are often mounted on. This allows for example to capture images from an elevated point of view and to access information otherwise not easily obtained at ground level. Information captured by such cameras and other image capturing means is valuable in a wide range of applications such as traffic monitoring, parking monitoring, crowd monitoring, etc. , and can be used to help road users, city planners, etc., and/or to increase the security of road users. In order to be able to use the information captured by the camera, an application may be installed. For example, a camera aimed at the surface of a road will have a better view at the vehicles driving on the road surface than at parked vehicles on the parking spaces or at pedestrians on the sidewalk. Therefore, a road traffic monitoring application may be installed. In other examples, the camera may be aimed at a curbside and a people traffic monitoring may be installed. Furthermore, the application itself also often needs to be configured. SUMMARY An object of embodiments of the invention is to provide a system, preferably an auto-commissioning system, comprising an image capturing means, allowing for an automatization of the use of the images captured by the image capturing means, preferably a kind of auto-commissioning of the system. The image capturing means may be part of a luminaire or traffic light and this autocommissioning may be part of the commissioning procedure of the entire luminaire or traffic light, but this is not required. According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a system, preferably an autocommissioning system, with an image capturing means, such as a camera, arranged to capture an image of an area. The system further comprises a processing means configured to perform the steps of: controlling the image capturing means so as to capture a sequence of images over time; processing the captured sequence of images over time to detect at least one scene element in the area; selecting at least one application from a list of applications, such as a traffic monitoring application or a parking monitoring application, based on a result of the processing; configuring the at least one application based on the captured sequence. In other words, the system takes a sequence of images of an area and processes these images to detect scene elements that are present in the images and hence in the area. For example, detected scene elements may include static or moving vehicles, pedestrians, parking spaces, occupied or not, a road crossing, a curb side, etc. Depending on the elements that are detected, one or more applications may be selected. The one or more applications may be pre-installed in the system or may be installed by the processing means. For example, if several moving vehicles are detected, a vehicle traffic monitoring, e.g., vehicle counting application or a speed monitoring application or a ghost driving application may be installed, and/or if several static vehicles are detected, a parking monitoring application may be installed. In another example, people may be detected on a curbside, and a people traffic monitoring, e.g., a people counting application, or a use type detection application, e.g., to detect the use of the curbside (such use as terrace, use as bicycle storage, etc.) may be selected. In a later step, the selected application is configured, based on information contained in the images of the captured sequence. For example, for a vehicle counting application, the position of one or more virtual counting barriers i