Methods and system for monitoring and assessing employee moods

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12155665-B2
Application number	US-201816756905-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 2, 2018
Priority date	Nov 3, 2017
Publication date	Nov 26, 2024
Grant date	Nov 26, 2024

Abstract

Methods and system for monitoring and assessing employee moods are disclosed. A proposed enterprise employee monitoring system includes surveillance cameras, a facial recognition module, an emotional analyzer module, and an employee database. The surveillance cameras capture image data including employee individuals within the enterprise. The facial recognition module identifies the individuals in the image data, and the emotional analyzer module determines an emotional state of the individuals based upon the image data. The employee database stores employee information and the emotional state information from the emotional analyzer module, based upon the identification performed by the facial recognition module.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
surveillance cameras configured to capture image data of a scene within an enterprise, the scene including an individual; and
a device comprising:
a memory storing instructions thereon; and
at least one processor coupled with the memory and configured by the instructions to:
determine, based on the image data, emotional state information defining an emotional state of the individual;
determine, based on the image data and the emotional state information, an emotion level for the individual corresponding to the emotional state information of the individual, the emotion level quantifying the emotional state according to a defined scale, wherein the defined scale discretizes a range of intensity of a type of the emotional state;
determine individual information based on the image data in response to the emotional state information corresponding to a particular type of the emotional state; and
send, to a second device, the emotional state information, the emotion level, the individual information, and a desk location of a desk of the individual within a building of the enterprise in response to the emotion level for the individual achieving a predefined threshold level in the defined scale, wherein the predefined threshold level exceeds a lower limit of the range of intensity,
wherein the second device is configured to:
request records for other individuals with matching desk locations of the desk location of the individual within the building of the enterprise; and
perform statistical analysis of the emotional state information and the emotion level of the individual and of the other individuals to detect a group level trend in an emotional state of a group including the individual and the other individuals.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the emotional state information is determined over time and time-stamped, and wherein the at least one processor is further configured by the instructions to generate statistical analysis, over a defined time interval, of the emotional state information of the individual at a defined time of day.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured by the instructions to report the statistical analysis to a second system.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured by the instructions to report the group level trend in the emotional state of the group to a security personnel device.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the individual information includes at least one of name of the individual or employee identifier of the individual.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the particular type of the emotional state includes at least one of angry, upset, or fearful.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable device having instructions thereon that, when executed by at least one computing device, causes the at least one computing device to perform operations comprising:
capturing image data of a scene within an enterprise, the scene including an individual;
determining, based on the image data, emotional state information defining an emotional state of the individual;
determining, based on the image data and the emotional state information, an emotion level for the individual corresponding to the emotional state information, the emotion level quantifying the emotional state according to a defined scale, wherein the defined scale discretizes a range of intensity of a type of the emotional state;
determining individual information based on the image data in response to the emotional state information corresponding to a particular type of the emotional state; and
sending, to a second computing device, the emotional state information, the emotion level, the individual information, and a desk location of a desk of the individual within a building of the enterprise in response to the emotion level for the individual achieving a predefined threshold level in the defined scale, wherein the predefined threshold level exceeds a lower limit of the range of intensity, wherein the second computing device is configured to:
request records for other individuals with matching desk locations of the desk location of the individual within the building of the enterprise; and
perform statistical analysis of the emotional state information and the emotion level of the individual and of the other individuals to detect a group level trend in an emotional state of a group including the individual and the other individuals.

8. A method, comprising:
capturing image data of a scene within an enterprise, the scene including an individual;
identifying the individual in the image data;
determining, based on the image data, an emotional state information of the individual defining an emotional state of the individual;
determining, based on the image data and the emotional state information, an emotion level for the individual for the emotional state information, the emotion level quantifying the emotional state according to a defined scale, wherein the defined scale discretizes a range of intensity of a type of the emotional state;
determining individual information based on the image data in response to the emotional state information corresponding to a particular type of the emotional state; and
sending, to a remote device, the emotional state information, the emotion level, the individual information, and a desk location of a desk of the individual within a building of the enterprise in response to the emotion level for the individual achieving a predefined threshold level in the defined scale, wherein the predefined threshold level exceeds a lower limit of the range of intensity, wherein the remote device is configured to:
request records for other individuals with matching desk locations of the desk location of the individual within the building of the enterprise; and
perform statistical analysis of the emotional state information and the emotion level of the individual and of the other individuals to detect a group level trend in an emotional state of a group including the individual and the other individuals.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the emotional state information is determined over time and time-stamped, the method further comprising generating statistical analysis, over a defined time interval, of the emotional state of the individual at a defined time of day.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising reporting the statistical analysis to an employee resource management system.

11. The method of claim 8 , further comprising reporting the group level trend to a remote device.

12. The method of claim 8 , further comprising identifying, based on the group level trend, a personnel issue for investigation.

13. The method of claim 8 , further comprising alerting, based on the group level trend, at least one of security guards or owners of the enterprise of potential threats or problems.

14. The method of claim 8 , further comprising restricting access to a premises of the enterprise in response to the emotional state information corresponding to the particular type of the emotional state.

15. The method of claim 10 , wherein the remote device is configured to request, from the employee resource management system, the other individuals with the matching desk locations of the desk location of the individual.

Assignees

• Sensormatic Electronics Llc

Inventors

• Ainsworth Peter Alexander
• Westmacott Ian C
• Donaghy Martin J
• Boyes Derek
• Neill Terry
• Mckenna John
• Gallagher Anne
• Paterson Mark
• Italiya Ashish

Classifications

• H04W4/023

  using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds · CPC title

• G08B13/19608

  Tracking movement of a target, e.g. by detecting an object predefined as a target, using target direction and or velocity to predict its new position · CPC title

• G06Q50/26

  Government or public services (business processes related to the transportation industry G06Q50/40) · CPC title

• G06Q10/1093

  Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups · CPC title

• G06Q10/105

  Human resources · CPC title