HUMAN INFORMATION SENSOR

A high-performance human information sensor, which can be used for det ecting the number of occupants of a room and their locations, has been developed. The sensor head module consists of an IR (infrared) sensor , a four-channel distance sensor and a horizontal scanning mechanism. A two-dimensional thermal distribution is obtained by horizontal scann ing of a vertical one-dimensional pyroelectric array detector. Spatial information on new objects is recognized by the difference between th e measured two-dimensional distance distribution and the initial two-d imensional distance distribution. The number of occupants and their lo cations are recognized accurately from the overlapping parts of the th ermal distribution and the spatial information on the new objects. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.