JP2005128701A - Electronic article surveillance system and its method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic article surveillance system and method that can prevent theft by warning a worker or another when a prowler enters a store by making use of a database accumulating features of persons who have illegally carried an article out of the store. <P>SOLUTION: An electronic article surveillance sensor comprising a sending gate 1 and a receiving gate 2 installed near a store entrance detects the passage of an electronic article surveillance element attached to an article, and upon the detection, an imaging device 5 images the scene about the electronic article surveillance sensor. A computer body 3 extracts facial features of the person included in the imaged scene and stores the extracted features in a given storage device. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an electronic article monitoring system and a method for preventing an article from being illegally taken out from various stores.

  In recent years, bookstores, rental video stores, and the like have frequently been fraudulently taken out of the store due to shoplifting. In order to prevent goods from being stolen from such actions, electronic stores monitoring systems (EAS) have been introduced in many stores. As a general electronic article monitoring system, electronic article monitoring realized by a gate equipped with a sensor function installed at an entrance of a store or the like by attaching an electronic article monitoring element such as a wireless tag for shoplifting prevention to a product etc. What detects the passage of goods etc. using an industrial sensor is known.

In a conventional electronic article monitoring system, when a product with a wireless tag attached passes through a gate having a sensor function, the wireless tag senses weak radio waves transmitted from the gate, and the self-sounding wireless tag itself An alarm is reported, or a sensor that detects passage of a non-self-sounding wireless tag and a gate-side alarm device or the like notifies the alarm is known (for example, see Patent Document 1).
JP 2001-126158 A

  However, the conventional electronic article monitoring system is configured such that an alarm such as a buzzer is notified, and after an unauthorized takeout of a product or the like is actually detected, an employee of the store where the system is installed or the store The main purpose is to inform a security company, etc., and basically only employees can take action after illegally taking out products.

  However, fraudulent acts such as shoplifting are often repeated by addicts, and when suspicious persons such as addicts enter the store, monitoring by employees etc. is strengthened in advance to prevent theft in advance. It is desirable to be able to do so.

  The present invention has been made in consideration of such circumstances, and a suspicious person can enter a store by accumulating in a database the characteristics of a person who has illegally taken goods out of the store. It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic article monitoring system and method capable of notifying the employee or the like when warning and preventing theft in advance.

In order to solve the above problems, an electronic article monitoring system according to the present invention uses an electronic article monitoring sensor provided in the vicinity of a store entrance to detect the passage of an electronic article monitoring element attached to a product. Means,
Photographing means for photographing a scene near the electronic article monitoring sensor when passage of the electronic article monitoring element is detected by the detection means;
Feature extraction means for extracting features of a person's face included in the scene photographed by the photographing means;
Storage means for storing the features extracted by the feature extraction means in a predetermined storage device.

In addition, the electronic article monitoring system according to the present invention includes a second photographing unit that photographs a scene including a face of a person entering the store, regardless of whether the electronic article monitoring element passes through,
Second feature extraction means for extracting features from the face of the person entering the store included in the scene;
Collation means for collating the features extracted by the second feature extraction means with features extracted in the past stored in the storage device;
And a notifying means for notifying a predetermined warning based on the result of matching by the matching means.

Furthermore, the electronic article monitoring system according to the present invention is a detection means for detecting the passage of an electronic article monitoring element attached to a product using an electronic article monitoring sensor provided in the vicinity of the store entrance and exit,
Photographing means for photographing a scene near the electronic article monitoring sensor when passage of the electronic article monitoring element is detected by the detection means;
Feature extraction means for extracting features of a person's face included in the scene photographed by the photographing means;
Storage means for storing the features extracted by the feature extraction means in a storage device connected via a network.

Furthermore, the electronic article monitoring method according to the present invention uses an electronic article monitoring sensor provided in the vicinity of a store entrance, and detects a passage of an electronic article monitoring element attached to a product.
A photographing step of photographing a scene near the electronic article monitoring sensor when passage of the electronic article monitoring element is detected by the detection step;
A feature extraction step for extracting features of a human face included in the scene photographed by the photographing step;
A storage step of storing the feature extracted in the feature extraction step in a predetermined storage device.

  According to the present invention, by accumulating in the database the characteristics of the person who has illegally taken goods out of the store and utilizing them, a warning is issued to employees when a suspicious person enters the store. Thus, theft of goods can be prevented in advance by taking measures such as strengthening monitoring by employees.

  Hereinafter, an electronic article monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing an operation at the time of leaving a store by the electronic article monitoring system according to the first embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is a transmission gate, and 2 is a reception gate, which is generally installed in the vicinity of a store entrance, and a customer who comes to the store and a customer who leaves the store pass between them. The weak radio wave transmitted from the transmission gate 1 is received by the reception gate 2. Here, an electronic article monitoring element such as a wireless tag is attached to or attached to a product displayed or sold in the store. For example, when the electronic article monitoring element is a self-sounding type, the tuning circuit in the element detects disturbance of the electromagnetic field by the weak radio wave transmitted between the gates when passing between the gates, and the element It sounds an alarm such as a buzzer. In addition, when the electronic article monitoring element is a non-self-sounding type, the state of the weak radio wave transmitted / received between the gates changes as the element attached to the product etc. passes between the gates. The alarm is notified by an alarm device installed on the gate side.

  Reference numeral 3 denotes a computer main body, reference numeral 4 denotes a monitor, and reference numeral 5 denotes a photographing device such as a camera. The photographing device 5 photographs the vicinity of a human face portion at a predetermined timing and temporarily stores it in the computer main body 3. In the computer body 3, various features are extracted from the temporarily stored image including the human face, and only the features are stored and stored in the internal hard disk. The monitor 4 can display a photographed image or a feature extracted from the captured image.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the electronic article monitoring system according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the electronic article monitoring system is realized by the detection unit 21 realized by the transmission gate 1 and the reception gate 2, the imaging unit 22 realized by the imaging device 5, and the monitor 4. A display unit 23 and a storage unit 24 realized by a hard disk or the like in the computer main body 3 are provided. Furthermore, the electronic article monitoring system includes an alarm unit 25 that is realized as an alarm device that notifies an alarm, and an informing unit 26 for informing an employee or the like of a suspicious person entering the store, which will be described later. In addition, the electronic article monitoring system includes a feature extraction unit 27 that performs a feature extraction process from a photographed image, a feature extracted in the past stored in the storage unit 24, and a feature currently extracted by the feature extraction unit 27. A collation unit 28 for collation, and a control unit 29 for controlling the operations of the detection unit 21 to the collation unit 28 and operations between the units are provided. These operations are realized by processing by the CPU or the like of the computer main body 3. Moreover, you may make it implement | achieve the alerting | reporting part 26 and the alerting | reporting part 26 by the same structure, and the alerting | reporting part 26 and the display part 23 by the same structure.

  Next, in the electronic article monitoring system according to the first embodiment shown in FIG. 1, an operation example when a customer leaving the store passes through the gate will be described. FIG. 5 is a flow chart for explaining a monitoring process for merchandise using the electronic article monitoring system according to the first embodiment of the present invention. First, the process of accumulating and storing the characteristics of a suspicious person who has performed an illegal take-out action will be described using the flowchart.

  First, when a product or the like is regularly purchased in the store, an electronic article monitoring element attached or attached to the product or the like is removed or invalidated by an employee so that the customer carrying the product or the like Even when the vehicle passes between the transmission gate 1 and the reception gate 2 and goes out of the store, the alarm is not notified. However, when taking goods etc. out of the store by unfair means such as shoplifting etc., when trying to pass between the gates, the presence of the element attached to the goods etc. Is detected by the sensor constituted by the transmission gate 1 and the reception gate 2 (step S1).

  The sensor function may be realized in the computer main body 3 based on the state of the weak radio wave received by the reception gate 2. Further, instead of using the two gates of the transmission gate and the reception gate, one that performs transmission / reception with a single gate called an echo method may be applied.

  When the electronic article monitoring element affixed to the product or the like is self-sound by the above detection, the element is on the gate side. Raise an alarm.

  On the other hand, when the sensor detects the passage of the element, the imaging device 5 captures a scene near the sensor (step S2). For example, the photographing device 5 is installed so that a scene near the face of a person passing between the transmission gate 1 and the reception gate 2 can be photographed. Thereby, when the sensor detects passage of an element, an image including a face of a person carrying a product or the like to which the element is attached can be captured by the imaging device 5.

  Further, the photographing device 5 is not limited to a device that captures a scene when the sensor detects passage of an element and acquires a still image. For example, when the photographing device 5 is realized by a video camera, the photographing device 5 always photographs the moving image of the scene described above, and obtains a frame image when the sensor detects passage of the element. You may do it.

  The scene image thus obtained is temporarily stored in a RAM or the like in the computer main body 3. The image includes the faces of suspicious persons who carry the product with the device attached, or customers who have inadvertently passed through the gate when the sensor detects the passage of the device. Yes. Hereinafter, an image of a scene including these faces is referred to as a “face image”. Therefore, in the computer main body 3, a feature extraction process for extracting features from the face image is performed (step S3).

  For example, as a feature example, an image expressing the contour of the face, eyes, nose, mouth, etc. with an edge, the distance between components such as the eyes, nose, mouth, etc. and the ratio thereof can be used. Since the extraction method uses an existing image processing method, the description is omitted here. Prior to these feature extraction processes, preprocessing of the face image may be performed to obtain a difference image from a scene where no person exists. In particular, when a fixed camera is used, a target portion can be easily extracted using the background difference method.

  Then, the extracted feature component is stored together with the captured image in a storage device such as a hard disk in the computer main body 3 (step S4). Here, only the extracted feature component may be stored in the storage device. As a result, compared with the case where the entire photographed image is stored, the capacity required for storage can be reduced. It should be noted that in the collation process described later, a quick process can be realized by directly using the stored data regarding the characteristic component. Further, information such as the shooting date and time may be stored together with these characteristic components. In this way, it is possible to accumulate characteristic data of a person who seems to be a suspicious person.

  Next, in the electronic article monitoring system according to the present embodiment, an operation example when a customer coming to the store passes through the gate will be described. Here, FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing an operation at the time of entering the store by the electronic article monitoring system according to the first embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 3, 1 is a transmission gate, and 2 is a reception gate, which is generally installed near the store entrance, and a customer passes through the store to enter the store. Reference numeral 3 denotes a computer main body, reference numeral 4 denotes a monitor, and reference numeral 5 denotes a photographing device such as a camera. The basic functions and the like of each are as described above with reference to FIG. In addition, although the imaging device used at the time of leaving the store and the shooting device used at the time of entering the store use the same shooting device 5 in the present embodiment, different shooting devices are used at the time of entering the store and at the time of leaving the store. May be used.

  First, when a customer enters the store, the vicinity of a person's face is photographed by the photographing device 5 at a predetermined timing and temporarily stored in the computer main body 3 (step S5). Then, as described above, the computer main body 3 extracts various features from the temporarily stored image including the human face (step S6).

  Here, as a timing for photographing the face of the store visitor using the photographing device 5, for example, a case of passing between the transmission gate 1 and the reception gate 2 is used. For this purpose, for example, an infrared sensor or the like is further provided at the gate, and when the passage of the store visitor is detected by the infrared sensor, the scene near the infrared sensor is photographed using the photographing device 5. For this purpose, for example, the photographing device 5 is installed so that a scene near the face of a person who enters the store (visits the store) through the transmission gate 1 and the reception gate 2 can be photographed. Thereby, when the sensor detects the passage of the store visitor, an image including the face of the store visitor can be taken by the imaging device 5.

  Moreover, the imaging device 5 is not limited to the one that only captures a still image by capturing a scene when the infrared sensor detects a visitor, as in the case of leaving the store. For example, when the photographing device 5 is realized by a video camera, a moving image of the scene described above is always photographed by the photographing device 5, and a frame image when the infrared sensor detects the passing of the store visitor is obtained. You may make it acquire.

  Similarly, the scene image acquired in this manner is temporarily stored in a RAM or the like in the computer main body 3. The image includes faces of customers who have visited the store for the first time and customers who have visited the store many times in the past. Therefore, in the computer main body 3, a feature extraction process for extracting features from these face images is performed. Note that the feature examples are the same as described above, and thus the description thereof is omitted here.

  Various features including the extracted feature component and the feature component of the facial image of the suspicious person who has been detected by the sensor and has been alerted in the past are stored in a storage device such as a hard disk in the computer main body 3. A feature component related to a simple person is collated (step S7). The specific matching process uses an existing matching method such as pattern matching using the entire feature or pattern matching using the partial feature, and thus description thereof is omitted here.

  As a result of the verification, if the customer matches or resembles the characteristics of a suspicious person such as a person who has attempted to take out a product with an electronic article monitoring element attached in the past, a warning is notified. (Step S8). As a warning notification example, a display indicating that the suspicious person has visited the store is displayed on the monitor 4 that can be browsed only by the employee (that is, dedicated to the employee), and an image of the suspicious person is displayed together with the display. You may make it display. Moreover, you may make it alert | report with respect to the portable buzzer and the apparatus which a employee carries individually.

  Thereby, since it is possible to suitably notify the employee of the suspicious person's visit to the store, it is possible to strengthen the monitoring in the store and prevent theft and the like. In particular, it becomes possible to more accurately monitor addicts such as shoplifting and theft of the same store.

  FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing the configuration of the electronic article monitoring system according to the second embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 4, reference numeral 30 denotes an electronic article monitoring system in the store A, which includes a transmission gate 31, a reception gate 32, a computer 33, a monitor 34, and a photographing device 35. The functions of the transmission gate 31, the reception gate 32, the computer main body 33, the monitor 34, and the photographing device 34 are the same as those of the electronic article monitoring system in FIG.

  3, reference numeral 40 denotes an electronic article monitoring system in the store B, and its detailed configuration (transmission gate 41, reception gate 42, computer main body 43, monitor 44, and photographing device 45) is also shown in FIG. It is the same as that of the system. Further, reference numeral 50 denotes a characteristic component such as the above-described suspicious person stored in a storage device in each computer body of the store A and the store B, or a database in which the characteristic component and its image are accumulated. As shown in FIG. 3, the computer main body and the database 50 of the electronic article monitoring systems 30 and 40 of the stores A and B are connected to a network 60 such as a WAN. Note that the storage device of the computer main body in each of the electronic article monitoring systems 30 and 40 may store all the characteristic components and the like in the database 50 without storing them. The network 60 can also be realized by the Internet, but it is desirable to use a dedicated line from the viewpoint of security measures.

  As for the operation of the electronic article monitoring system in each store shown in FIG. 3, the extracted features are stored (stored) in the database 50 as well as the storage device of each computer main body (or stored only in the database 50). ) And the first embodiment described above except that the features are collated by referring to the features stored in the database 50 instead of referring to the storage device of the computer main body at the time of the matching. Similar to the example.

  In addition, although FIG. 3 demonstrated using the electronic article monitoring system and one database 50 which were each installed in two stores A and B, three or more stores which have installed the electronic article monitoring system, or It is clear that the electronic article monitoring system of each store functions similarly even in a network system in which there are two or more databases that store the characteristics of suspicious persons and the like.

  For example, the network system as described above may be realized between the same chain stores or between the same industry / different industry stores in a certain region. Product monitoring is possible. In particular, it becomes possible to more accurately monitor addicts such as shoplifting and theft in chain stores. In addition, it is possible to prevent theft by the wide band thief and the like which are frequently occurring in recent years by strengthening the product monitoring.

  In the present invention, a program for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments by a computer is recorded on a computer-readable recording medium (storage medium), and the program recorded on the recording medium is stored in the system. A computer or the like may read and execute. Computer-readable recording media include portable recording media such as a flexible disk, CR-ROM, and DVD-ROM, a storage device (recording device) such as a hard disk or volatile memory (RAM) built in the system or computer. Device). The program may be downloaded to the system, computer, or the like via a network such as the Internet or a communication line such as a telephone line.

  Then, the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by executing the read program in the system or the computer. In this case, the recording medium or the like stores a program corresponding to the flowchart described above.

It is a schematic diagram which shows the operation | movement at the time of a store leaving by the electronic article monitoring system which concerns on 1st Example of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the electronic article monitoring system which concerns on 1st Example of this invention. It is a schematic diagram which shows the operation | movement at the time of the store entrance by the electronic article monitoring system which concerns on 1st Example of this invention. It is a schematic diagram which shows the structure of the electronic article monitoring system which concerns on the 2nd Example of this invention. It is a flowchart for demonstrating the monitoring process of goods etc. using the electronic article monitoring system in 1st Example of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

1, 31, 41 Transmission gate 2, 32, 42 Reception gate 3, 33, 43 Computer main body 4, 34, 44 Monitor 5, 35, 45 Imaging device 30 Store A
40 Store B
50 database 60 network

Claims (8)

Detection means for detecting the passage of the electronic article monitoring element attached to the product using the electronic article monitoring sensor provided in the vicinity of the store entrance;
Photographing means for photographing a scene near the electronic article monitoring sensor when passage of the electronic article monitoring element is detected by the detection means;
Feature extraction means for extracting features of a person's face included in the scene photographed by the photographing means;
An electronic article monitoring system comprising: storage means for storing the feature extracted by the feature extraction means in a predetermined storage device. Regardless of whether the electronic article monitoring element passes or not, second imaging means for imaging a scene including a face of a person entering the store;
Second feature extraction means for extracting features from the face of the person entering the store included in the scene;
Collation means for collating the features extracted by the second feature extraction means with features extracted in the past stored in the storage device;
The electronic article monitoring system according to claim 1, further comprising: a notification unit that notifies a predetermined warning based on a verification result by the verification unit. The alerting means alerts the warning when there is a feature extracted in the past that matches or is similar to the feature extracted by the second feature extraction means based on the result of matching by the matching means. The electronic article monitoring system according to claim 2.   The electronic article monitoring system according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the notification means notifies the warning to a receiver carried by an employee of the store.   The electronic article according to any one of claims 2 to 4, wherein the notification means notifies the display by displaying the content of the warning on a display device that can be browsed by an employee of the store. Monitoring system. Detection means for detecting the passage of the electronic article monitoring element attached to the product using the electronic article monitoring sensor provided in the vicinity of the store entrance;
Photographing means for photographing a scene near the electronic article monitoring sensor when passage of the electronic article monitoring element is detected by the detection means;
Feature extraction means for extracting features of a person's face included in the scene photographed by the photographing means;
An electronic article monitoring system comprising: storage means for storing the feature extracted by the feature extraction means in a storage device connected via a network. It is another electronic article monitoring system connectable to the electronic article monitoring system according to claim 6 via the network,
Means for detecting the passage of the electronic article monitoring element attached to the product using the electronic article monitoring sensor provided in the vicinity of the store entrance;
Means for photographing a scene near the electronic article monitoring sensor when passage of the electronic article monitoring element is detected;
Means for extracting facial features of a person included in the photographed scene;
An electronic article monitoring system comprising: means for storing the extracted features in the storage device connected via the network. A detection step of detecting passage of an electronic article monitoring element attached to the product using an electronic article monitoring sensor provided near the store entrance and exit;
A photographing step of photographing a scene near the electronic article monitoring sensor when passage of the electronic article monitoring element is detected by the detection step;
A feature extraction step for extracting features of a human face included in the scene photographed by the photographing step;
A storage step of storing the feature extracted in the feature extraction step in a predetermined storage device.

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